The Tulsa World is an American daily newspaper. It serves the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is the primary newspaper for the northeastern and eastern portions of Oklahoma. The printed edition is the second-most circulated newspaper in the state, after The Oklahoman.
It was founded in 1905 and locally owned by the Lorton family for almost 100 years until February 2013, when it was sold to BH Media Group,[2] a Berkshire Hathaway company controlled by Warren Buffett.[3] The Tulsa World Media Company became part of Lee Enterprises in 2020.[4] The paper was jointly operated with the Tulsa Tribune from 1941 to 1992.[5]
History
Republican activist James F. McCoy and Kansas journalist J.R. Brady published the first edition of the Tulsa World on September 14, 1905[6] at the time Brady was starting Tulsa World, he was also publishing the Indian Republican a weekly newspaper, which was previously edited by a con artist named Myron Boyle. Brady had bought the Indian Republican in 1905 and fired Boyle in the following year. Boyle borrowed $500 from Dr. S. G. Kennedy, ostensibly to pay some personal debts. Instead, he left town without repaying Dr. Kennedy.[7]
Brady was sufficiently successful establishing the Tulsa World that it attracted a Missouri mine owner, George Bayne, and his brother-in-law, Charles Dent, who bought and ran the paper for the next five years.[7] In 1911, Eugene Lorton, who had just sold his stake in a Walla Walla, Washington newspaper, and moved to Tulsa, bought an interest in the Tulsa World, becoming its editor,[8] and then, with financial backing from Harry Ford Sinclair, the sole owner and publisher in 1917.[7]
Beginning in 1915, the Tulsa World fought an editorial battle advocating a proposal to build a reservoir on Spavinaw Creek and pipe the water 55 miles to Tulsa.[6]Charles Page was among those who opposed the Spavinaw plan; he advocated a plan in his own newspaper to sell water from the Shell Creek water system, which Page owned.[9][10] Page's newspaper, the Morning News, closed in 1919 after Tulsans approved a bond issue to pipe the water from Spavinaw.[9] He sold a companion paper, Tulsa Democrat, to Richard Lloyd Jones, who renamed it the Tulsa Tribune.[9]
The Tulsa Tribune and Tulsa World entered a joint operating agreement in June 1941.[5] Eugene Lorton died in 1949,[8] leaving majority interest in the newspaper to his wife Maude and smaller shares to four daughters and 20 employees. Eugene's presumed successor, Robert Lorton, had died at age 24 in 1939.[11] In the 1950s, Maude Lorton transferred one-fourth of the company to attorney Byron Boone, who became publisher in 1959. Upon her death, she left the rest of her shares to her grandson Robert. In 1964, Robert Lorton became director of the News Publishing Corporation, which oversaw the non-editorial operations of both the Tulsa Tribune and Tulsa World. In 1968, he became president of the Tulsa World and publisher upon Boone's death in 1988. The Tulsa Tribune ceased operations in 1992 and Tulsa World acquired its assets.[5] Robert Lorton reacquired the World's outstanding shares and made the newspaper entirely family-owned once again. In May 2005, he passed the title of publisher to his son Robert E. Lorton III. During the same year, World Publishing Company had 700 employees, and was ranked as one of Oklahoma's largest employers.[12]
In February 2013, the paper announced that it would be sold to Berkshire Hathaway's BH Media Group, controlled by Warren Buffett.[3] In 2015, BH Media bought six weekly papers and the daily Tulsa Business & Legal News from Community Publishers Inc.[13]
On April 20, 2015, four Tulsa World journalists—including two nominated for the Pulitzer Prize—suddenly resigned their jobs to accept positions at The Frontier, a new online-only publication launched by the former World publisher, Bobby Lorton.[14][15]
In 2016, the World announced it would not endorse any candidate in the 2016 election, saying that the American people had been presented with "the least acceptable list of candidates for president in modern times." The paper had maintained its loyalty to the GOP after Eugene Lorton's death; it had endorsed the GOP standardbearer in every election since 1940.[16]
Recent developments
Tulsa World's headquarters are located in downtown Tulsa.
In February 2013, the paper announced that it would be sold to Berkshire Hathaway's BH Media Group, controlled by Warren Buffett.[3]Lee Enterprises announced an agreement to buy BH Media Group publications and The Buffalo News for $140 million cash on January 29, 2020. The acquisition includes the Tulsa World.[4]
As of September 2012, weekday circulation was 95,003; Saturday circulation was 104,602; and Sunday circulation was 133,066.[citation needed] In April 2011, the World introduced a metered model to its digital products that limits the amount of locally produced articles that a non-subscriber can view at no charge. Once viewers have opened 5 stories in 30 days, they will be asked to purchase a subscription. The home page, all section pages, classifieds and most syndicated content is unrestricted to all readers. "In reality, more people are engaged with our content than ever before. But it no longer seems fair to have a portion of our readers pay for our content while others do not. Therefore, like many publications, we have decided to charge a fee for our digital content. Print subscribers will continue to receive unlimited access to our digital products," wrote then publisher and CEO Robert E. Lorton III in a letter to readers[17] In March 2008, the World closed its zoned suburban newspapers, called the "Community World," and laid off its 18 staff members.[18]Tulsa World laid off 28 employees in early 2009. Twenty-six newsroom employees were terminated immediately.[18] Editors said in a memo that staff members would be challenged to produce a quality product after the layoffs, and editors asked remaining newsroom employees to take on new duties.[citation needed] On March 29, 2009, the World published a column by its then publisher, Robert E. Lorton III, responding to what Lorton called "an unusual amount of concerned correspondence in regard to the future of this company and our industry." Lorton asserted that despite the difficult economy and general downward trends in the newspaper industry and the World's own staff cuts, that Tulsa World remains profitable and has a healthy capital structure.[19] The World further reduced staff on March 1, 2011 by terminating eighteen employees, "the result of a company-wide evaluation by management of operational efficiencies." The World says "the reduction represents approximately 3 percent of its staff."[20]
Also in January 2009, the Tulsa World and Oklahoma City's daily newspaper, The Oklahoman, announced a content-sharing agreement in which each paper would carry some content created by the other. The papers also said they would "focus on reducing some areas of duplication, such as sending reporters from both The Oklahoman and Tulsa World to cover routine news events."[21]
In mid-January 2009, Tulsa World filed a libel lawsuit against noted local blogger Michael Bates, Urban Tulsa Weekly, and the Weekly's editor and publisher, over a column Bates wrote for the weekly paper, in which Bates expressed doubts about the World's circulation numbers based on a 2006 report by the Audit Bureau of Circulation.[citation needed] On January 20, The Tulsa World said it would drop the case against Urban Tulsa Weekly and its editor and publisher, after the weekly paper agreed to issue a retraction,[22] but Bates remained a defendant.[23]Tulsa World's decision to sue a competitor paper was criticized in a column by Slate editor Jack Shafer.[24] On February 12, 2009, the World reported that Bates had issued an apology and retraction, and that the libel lawsuit had been settled on confidential terms.[25]
Owasso is a city in Rogers and Tulsa Counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, and the largest northern suburb of Tulsa. The population was 39,328 persons as of the 2022 census estimate, compared to 28,915 at the 2010 census, a gain of 36 percent. Originally settled in 1881 in Indian Territory, the town was incorporated in 1904 just before Oklahoma statehood and was chartered as a city in 1972.
The Press of Atlantic City is the fourth-largest daily newspaper in New Jersey. Originally based in Pleasantville, it is the primary newspaper for southeastern New Jersey and the Jersey Shore. The newspaper designated market runs from Waretown in southern Ocean County down to Cape May. It also reaches west to Cumberland County. The Press closed its printing facility in Pleasantville in 2014, at which time it outsourced printing to a facility in Freehold. That printing plant closed in 2017, with most of the New Jersey printing and production operations consolidated in Gannett's Rockaway plant.
The Buffalo News is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York.
The Register-Guard is a daily newspaper in the northwestern United States, published in Eugene, Oregon. It was formed in a 1930 merger of two Eugene papers, the Eugene Daily Guard and the Morning Register. The paper serves the Eugene-Springfield area, as well as the Oregon Coast, Umpqua River valley, and surrounding areas. As of 2019, it had a supposed circulation of 18,886 daily.
The Omaha World-Herald is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area.
The Oklahoman is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media lists it as the 59th largest U.S. newspaper in circulation.
This is a summary of mass communications media in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The Winston-Salem Journal is an American, English language daily newspaper primarily serving Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, North Carolina. It also covers Northwestern North Carolina.
The News & Record is an American, English language newspaper with the largest circulation serving Guilford County, North Carolina, and the surrounding region. It is based in Greensboro, North Carolina, and produces local sections for Greensboro and Rockingham County, North Carolina.
The Eagle, officially known as The Bryan-College Station Eagle, is a daily newspaper based in Bryan, Texas, United States. Centered in Brazos County, the paper covers an eight-county area around Bryan-College Station that includes Texas A&M University.
The Tulsa Tribune was an afternoon daily newspaper published in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1919 to 1992. Owned and run by three generations of the Jones family, the Tribune closed in 1992 after the termination of its joint operating agreement with the morning Tulsa World.
The Herald & Review is a daily newspaper based in Decatur, Illinois. It is owned by Lee Enterprises.
The Spavinaw Water Project was established to provide fresh water for Tulsa, Oklahoma from a site on Spavinaw Creek near the town of Spavinaw in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Planning and financing began in 1919, The project scope included site selection, designing and constructing a dam to impound the creek, a 55-mile long pipeline to carry water to a reservoir near Tulsa, where it would be treated and pumped to a network of customers. Groundbreaking occurred in October, 1922. The dam and pipeline were both completed in 1924, and the new Tulsa water treating plant was completed in 1929. At that time, this was the longest gravity-flow water pipeline operational in the United States.
Richard Lloyd Jones was an American journalist who was the long-time editor and publisher of the now defunct Tulsa Tribune. He was noted for his controversial positions on political issues. The son of a notable Unitarian missionary, Jenkin Lloyd Jones, he was a co-founder of All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Eugene Lorton (1869-1949) was the long-time editor and publisher of the Tulsa World newspaper. Born in Missouri, he moved to Tulsa in 1911, where he bought a minority interest in the Tulsa World. Within six years, he owned the newspaper outright. He spent the rest of his life in Tulsa.
The York News-Times is a daily newspaper published in York, Nebraska. It is the newspaper of record for York County and surrounding counties in the Rainwater Basin region.
The 1924 United States Senate election in Oklahoma took place on November 4, 1924. Incumbent Democratic Senator Robert Latham Owen declined to run for re-election. In a crowded Democratic primary, impeached former Governor Jack C. Walton won the party's nomination with a narrow plurality. In the general election, he faced businessman William B. Pine, the Republican nominee. Though Democratic presidential nominee John W. Davis narrowly won the state over President Calvin Coolidge, Walton's unpopularity and controversy caused Democrats to lose the seat; Pine defeated Walton in a landslide.
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The Gering Courier is a weekly newspaper serving the Gering, Nebraska, community, currently published in Gering's sister city of Scottsbluff.
References
↑ Lee Enterprises. "Form 10-K". investors.lee.net. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
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