Shreveport Journal

Last updated

The Shreveport Journal was an American newspaper originally published by H. P. Benton in Shreveport and Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana. [1] In operation from at least 1897, it ceased publication in 1991.

Contents

History

The name The Journal was adopted on February 17, 1897. Previously the publication had been known for several years as The Judge. William E. Hamilton, another of several early owners, obtained the newspaper about 1900 and held it until 1911, when it was acquired by the Journal Publishing Company, with A. J. Frantz as the president and Douglas F. Attaway Sr. as secretary. By 1918, Attaway had acquired controlling interest; in 1925, he became the president and publisher. Upon the senior Attaway's death in 1957, his son, Douglas F. Attaway Jr., succeeded his father as both the president and publisher. [2] Attaway graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia. From 1966 to 1979, he was also the chairman of the board of KSLA-TV, the CBS affiliate established in 1954 and the first television outlet in Shreveport. Attaway sold KSLA to Viacom. He was also a former chairman of the board of Newspaper Production Company and the Attaway Newspaper Group, Inc. [3]

In 1972, Attaway wrote an article on a total eclipse, the phenomenon in which the moon totally blocks the rays of the sun, which occurred on July 10 of that year. Attaway and his long-term photo editor, Jack Barham, journeyed to New York City to observe the two-minute eclipse, having found their desirable spot of view under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. [4]

In 1974, Attaway recruited Stanley R. Tiner from the rival Shreveport Times to become the editor of The Journal. A Webster Parish native reared in Shreveport, Tiner graduated with a journalism degree from Louisiana Tech University. In 1976, Attaway sold The Journal to the Shreveport industrialist and philanthropist Charles T. Beaird, who had served in the late 1950s as a Republican for one term on the former Caddo Parish Police Jury. Tiner and Beaird moved the editorial position of The Journal to the political left, whereas it had been clearly conservative and earlier segregationist under Attaway and a previous editor, George Shannon. [5]

The Times and The Journal once shared a building at 222 Lake Street, although they were separately owned and editorially independent. The Times remains at the Lake Street location, but has moved operations to an adjacent building in recent years.[ citation needed ]

Closure in 1991

On January 29, 1991, Beaird announced that The Journal would terminate its daily operations two months later on March 30. The publication had steadily lost circulation and hence critical advertising revenues during the preceding decade. Readership dropped from a peak of nearly 40,000 to barely 16,000. "There just comes a time when it becomes uneconomical to go on. It was a very tough, sad decision," Beaird said. [6]

Though The Journal had closed as a daily paper in 1991, Beaird contracted an agreement with The Times to carry on its op-ed page called "Journal Page", which permitted continuing editorial comment approved by Beaird and managed by his editor, Jim Montgomery (1945–2013), also a native of Webster Parish. The "Journal Page" finally ended its run on December 31, 1999. [2]

Under Beaird, The Journal won several important prizes, including the Robert F. Kennedy Award for Coverage of the Disadvantaged by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Mass Media Gold Medallion for stories on African American history, and the Scripps-Howard National Journalism Awards for Editorial Writing. [6] "Journal Page" was a finalist in 1994 for a Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for a series on decriminalization of narcotics. [7] Years later in 2006, Stanley Tiner's staff at The Sun Herald in Biloxi-Gulfport, Mississippi, won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its reporting of Hurricane Katrina the previous year. [8]

Notable people

In addition to the aforementioned George Shannon, Stanley Tiner, and Jack Barham, other notable Journal staffers include:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize</span> Award for achievements in journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States

The Pulitzer Prize is an award administered by Columbia University for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher. As of 2023, prizes are awarded annually in twenty-three categories. In twenty-two of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award. The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medal.

<i>The Boston Globe</i> American daily newspaper

The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes.

<i>Arkansas Democrat-Gazette</i> Daily newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell. It is distributed for sale in all 75 of Arkansas' counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary</span> American journalism award

The Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary is one of the fourteen Pulitzer Prizes that is annually awarded for journalism in the United States. It is the successor to the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning awarded from 1922 to 2021.

<i>Lexington Herald-Leader</i> Newspaper based in Lexington, Kentucky

The Lexington Herald-Leader is a newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and based in Lexington, Kentucky. According to the 1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook, the paid circulation of the Herald-Leader is the second largest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

<i>Courier Journal</i> American daily newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky

The Courier Journal, also known as the Louisville Courier Journal, and called The Courier-Journal between November 8, 1868, and October 29, 2017, is a daily newspaper published in Louisville, Kentucky and owned by Gannett, which bills it as "Part of the USA Today Network".

<i>Tampa Bay Times</i> American daily newspaper

The Tampa Bay Times, called the St. Petersburg Times until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school directly adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus.

The Dartmouth is the daily student newspaper at Dartmouth College and America's oldest college newspaper. Originally named the Dartmouth Gazette, the first issue was published on August 27, 1799, under the motto "Here range the world—explore the dense and rare; and view all nature in your elbow chair."

<i>Press-Register</i> Newspaper in Mobile, Alabama

The Press-Register was a newspaper serving the southwest Alabama counties of Mobile and Baldwin. The newspaper is a descendant of one founded in 1813, making the Press-Register Alabama's oldest newspaper. It is owned by Advance Publications, which also owns the primary newspapers in Birmingham, Alabama and Huntsville, Alabama. The Press-Register had a daily publication schedule since the inception of its predecessors in the early 1800s until September 30, 2012, when it and its sister papers reduced printing editions to only Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KSLA</span> CBS affiliate in Shreveport, Louisiana

KSLA is a television station in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside low-power, Class A Telemundo affiliate KTSH-CD. The two stations share studios on Fairfield Avenue and Dashiel Street in central Shreveport; KSLA's transmitter is located near St. Johns Baptist Church Road in rural northern Caddo Parish.

<i>Montgomery Advertiser</i> Daily newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama

The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matt Bors</span> American cartoonist (born 1983)

Matt Bors is a nationally syndicated American editorial cartoonist and editor of online comics publication The Nib. Formerly the comics journalism editor for Cartoon Movement, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and 2020, and became the first alt-weekly cartoonist to win the Herblock Prize for Excellence in Cartooning.

<i>The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate</i> American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana

The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate is an American newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ancestral publications of other names date back to January 25, 1837. The current publication is the result of the 2019 acquisition of The Times-Picayune by the New Orleans edition of The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The Times is a Gannett daily newspaper based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Its distribution area includes 12 parishes in Northwest Louisiana and three counties in East Texas. Its coverage focuses on issues affecting the Shreveport-Bossier market, and includes investigative reporting, community news, arts and entertainment, government, education, sports, business, and religion, along with local opinion/commentary. Its website provides news updates, videos, photo galleries, forums, blogs, event calendars, entertainment, classifieds, contests, databases, and a regional search engine. Local news content produced by The Times is available on the website at no charge for seven days.

Walter James Amoss III is former editor of The Times-Picayune. Under his leadership and that of the publisher, Ashton Phelps Jr., the paper won two Pulitzer Prizes in 1997 for public service and editorial cartooning, and in 2006 won two more Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

Eugene Leslie Roberts Jr. is an American journalist and professor of journalism. He has been a national editor of The New York Times, executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1972 to 1990, and managing editor of The New York Times from 1994 to 1997. Roberts is most known for presiding over The Inquirer's "Golden Age", a time in which the newspaper was given increased freedom and resources, won 17 Pulitzer Prizes in 18 years, displaced The Philadelphia Bulletin as the city's "paper of record", and was considered to be Knight Ridder's crown jewel as a profitable enterprise and an influential regional paper.

Joey Kennedy is an American journalist who lives in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Bossier Press-Tribune is a newspaper serving Bossier Parish in northwestern Louisiana. Published on Wednesdays, the Press-Tribute covers mostly local news but includes regional, state, and national coverage for its readership when warranted.

Edward John Meeman was an American journalist and editor.

References

  1. "About The Shreveport journal. (Shreveport, La.) 1902–1991 – Chronicling America". The Library of Congress. Retrieved December 13, 2012.
  2. 1 2 "Shreveport Journal Collection (1921–1990)". lsus.edu. Retrieved June 13, 2012.
  3. John Andrew Prime, "Former Journal publisher dies at age 83", Shreveport Times , February 22, 1994
  4. "Douglas Attaway and Jack Barham, "Eclipse Splendor: Two Minutes of History," July 28, 1972". nauticom.net. Retrieved June 13, 2012.
  5. "Tiner announces candidacy for post representing District 4", Minden Press-Herald, December 15, 1987, p. 10
  6. 1 2 "Shreveport Journal ends publication after 96 years", Minden Press-Herald, March 31, 1991, p. 1
  7. Beaird obituary, Shreveport Times, April 20, 2006
  8. The Pulitzer Prizes for 1970
  9. "Craig Flournoy" . linkedin.com. Retrieved May 24, 2015.[ self-published source ]
  10. "Bill Keith". pelicanpub.com. Retrieved July 3, 2012.
  11. Mann, Robert. "About Robert Mann". bobmannblog.com. Archived from the original on January 4, 2019. Retrieved October 18, 2013.[ self-published source ]
  12. William McCleary, "Remembering Rupert Peyton (1899–1982) Journalist and State Representative, North Louisiana History , Vol. 40, No. 1 (Winter 2009), p. 22