Portland Press Herald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 The April 4, 2007 front page of the Portland Press Herald |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Broadsheet |
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| Owner | Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. |
| Publisher | Charles Cochrane |
| Editor | Jeannine Guttman |
| Founded | 1862 |
| Headquarters | 390 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04101-5009  United States |
| Circulation | 67,516 daily, 102,904 Sunday in 2007[1] |
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| Website: MaineToday.com | |
The Portland Press Herald (and Maine Sunday Telegram; collectively known as The Portland Newspapers) publish daily newspapers every day of the week in Portland, Maine, USA. Serving the state's largest and most commercially important city, as well as much of southern Maine, the Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram form the largest-circulation newsroom in Maine.
The Portland Newspapers throughout most of the 20th century were the cornerstone of Guy Gannett's media holdings. In 1998, the local owner sold the papers to Blethen Maine Newspapers, part of the Seattle Times family of newspapers, owned by the Blethen family, which has Maine roots but is now based in Washington.[2]
On Monday, March 17, 2008, the Press Herald released a smaller, 2-section newspaper (in contrast to its traditional 4+ section paper). A brief editorial highlighted advertising concerns and said the other sections could be found online.
The next day, on Tuesday, March 18, 2008, The Seattle Times Company, parent company of Blethen Maine Newspapers, announced that it was putting the Press Herald and its other Maine newspaper properties up for sale.[3]
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[edit] Statewide reach
The Portland Newspapers maintain news bureaus in Augusta, Biddeford, Brunswick, and Sanford, Maine. The papers also operate seven circulation depots, in Portland, South Portland, Windham, Yarmouth, Bath, Saco and Sanford, Maine. The daily Press Herald circulates six days per week in five counties: Cumberland, Knox, Lincoln, Sagadahoc and York. On Sundays, the Maine Sunday Telegram is sold statewide.
Blethen Maine Newspapers also owns Central Maine Newspapers, publisher of the Morning Sentinel in Waterville and the Kennebec Journal in Augusta; and Maine Community Publications, which publishes The Maine Switch, a free weekly lifestyle magazine serving Greater Portland, and The Coastal Journal, a community newspaper serving the Bath-Brunswick area.
[edit] History
The Press Herald, founded in 1862 on Congress Street, is the largest in the state in terms of both circulation and reporting staff. To this day, its offices remain in the Gannett Building on the corner of Congress and Exchange streets, near the Old Port section of the city.
Its editorial board is generally viewed to have center-left political views. It endorsed the 2003 Iraq War, but has since criticized the war's execution. In Maine's 2006 campaign for governor it endorsed John Baldacci, the incumbent Democrat, who was reelected. In the 2004 presidential election, the paper endorsed Democrat John Kerry, who won Maine but lost the national election.
[edit] Online
The Press Herald and Sunday Telegram website, and those of its sister papers, are part of Blethen's MaineToday.com portal.
The domain name Portland.com was originally the web address for the Portland, Maine based newspaper "Press Herald" and "Sunday Telegram" but was sold to a marketing firm and became a visitor's guide to city of Portland, Oregon in May 2004.
In September 2006, MaineToday.com launched myMaineToday.com, a "citizen media" initiative. Residents of Maine towns such as Falmouth, Cumberland, Yarmouth, North Yarmouth and Freeport can post news items, photos and upcoming events directly into their town's page on myMaineToday.com.
[edit] Anti-Semitism controversy
The Religion and Values section of the Saturday, February 3, 2007 edition of the Press Herald included an ad from the First Baptist Church of South Portland, which listed the sermon as "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race". This caused outrage in Greater Portland's Jewish Community[4] and led to an apology by the minister of that church.[5]
However, less than two weeks later, People's Choice Credit Union ran an ad in the February 14, 2007 edition of the Press Herald that depicted a bearded "Fee Bandit" that resembled a Hasidic Jew, eager to take people's money.[6] This incident prompted investigations by the Anti-Defamation League; Steven Wessler, director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence and the person in charge of dealing with hate crimes in the state; and the Jewish Community Alliance. The newspaper's management later apologized for printing the advertisements in question without checking them first, and said it they would scrutinize ad content more closely before printing.[7][5]
[edit] References
- ^ Audit Bureau of Circulations "e-Circ" data for six months ending 31 March 2007.
- ^ "History of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram". Accessed May 27, 2007.
- ^ "Seattle Times Co. puts Maine newspapers up for sale"
- ^ Conroy, Erin, and James Vaznis. "Anti-Semitism Sermon Title Rankles Maine Jews". The Boston Globe, February 5, 2007.
- ^ a b "Dateline World Jewry", April 2007, World Jewish Congress
- ^ Erskine, Rhonda. "Credit Union, Newspaper Apologize for Controversial Ad". WSCH6.com, February 16, 2007.
- ^ http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070217ad.html "Newspaper vows closer scrutiny of ad content". Portland Press Herald
[edit] External links
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