The ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' is a daily
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
published in
Albany, Oregon
Albany is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the eleventh largest city in that state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton counties, just ...
, United States. The paper is owned by the Iowa-based
Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises, Inc. is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 77 daily newspapers in 26 states, and more than 350 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is b ...
, a firm which also owns the daily ''
Corvallis Gazette-Times
The ''Corvallis Gazette-Times'' is a daily newspaper for Corvallis, Benton County, Oregon, United States. The newspaper, along with its sister publication, the ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' of neighboring Albany, Oregon, is owned by Lee Enterprise ...
,'' published in the adjacent market of
Corvallis, Oregon
Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...
, as well as two weeklies, the ''
Lebanon Express'' and the ''Philomath Express.'' The two daily papers publish a joint Sunday edition, called ''Mid-Valley Sunday.''
The ''Democrat-Herald'' covers the cities of Albany,
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...
, and
Sweet Home, Oregon, as well as the towns of
Jefferson,
Halsey,
Tangent
In geometry, the tangent line (or simply tangent) to a plane curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches" the curve at that point. Leibniz defined it as the line through a pair of infinitely close points on the curve. Mo ...
,
Harrisburg
Harrisburg is the capital city of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Dauphin County. With a population of 50,135 as of the 2021 census, Harrisburg is the 9th largest city and 15th largest municipality in ...
,
Brownsville, and
Shedd.
Publication history
Forerunners
The first newspaper published in
Albany, Oregon
Albany is the county seat of Linn County, Oregon, and is the eleventh largest city in that state. Albany is located in the Willamette Valley at the confluence of the Calapooia River and the Willamette River in both Linn and Benton counties, just ...
, county seat of
Linn County, was the ''
Oregon Democrat,'' launched by
US Senator
The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States.
The composition and powe ...
Delazon Smith
Delazon Smith (October 5, 1816November 19, 1860) was a Democratic Party politician who briefly represented the state of Oregon in the U.S. Senate in 1859. He served for less than one month (February 14 to March 3), making his term among the short ...
on November 1, 1859.
A dedicated supporter of the pro-slavery
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, Smith's publication was largely devoted to fierce partisan polemics with the editor of the rival
Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
publication, the ''
Oregon Statesman,'' published by the indefatigable
Asahel Bush
Asahel Bush (June 4, 1824 – December 23, 1913) was an American newspaper publisher and businessman in Salem, Oregon. As publisher of the ''Oregon Statesman'' newspaper, he moved the paper to Salem when the territorial capital moved to that city. ...
in the nearby city of
Salem.
Founding publisher Smith died in November 1860, on the eve of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
. The ''Oregon Democrat'' was carried forward by a new publisher, Pat Malone, but the
Confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
-sympathizing weekly ran into trouble with the Republican keepers of the postal system and on April 30, 1862, the paper was banned from the US Mail for its political line.
Editor Malone attempted to avoid the postal ban with a remade publication called the ''Albany Inquirer,'' but that paper was likewise banned from the mails, thereby effectively terminating the publication.
Origins
It was not until the summer of 1865 that a Democratic newspaper was able to be reestablished in Albany. This was a weekly called the ''State Rights Democrat,'' launched on August 1, 1865, by publisher James O'Meara.
It is this publication — issued continuously from 1865 into the 21st Century — to which the ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' itself traces its roots.
The ''State Rights Democrat'' existed as a weekly publication for 17 years, until the paper was sold in 1882 to a new publisher, Fred Nutting, who placed his mark on the broadsheet with a new title, the ''Albany Weekly Democrat.''
This name remained in place for six years, until the 1888 move of the paper from a weekly to a daily publication schedule, with the paper becoming the ''Albany Democrat'' effective with the change.
In 1879, a rival Republican newspaper was launched in Albany by
William Gladstone Steel
William Gladstone Steel (September 7, 1854 – October 21, 1934) was an American journalist who was known for campaigning for 17 years for the United States Congress to designate Crater Lake as a National Park. Steel is from Ohio, and worked in th ...
, the ''Albany Herald.''
The dual partisan newspapers battled for market share for nearly half a century until on February 24, 1925, the dominant ''Albany Democrat'' absorbed its younger rival.
For about six weeks the title ''Albany Democrat & Albany Herald'' was clumsily used, with a change made to the current moniker, ''Albany Democrat-Herald,'' in the middle of April 1925.
Ownership changes
The ''Democrat-Herald'' was privately owned by individuals for most of the 20th Century. In 1919 the ''Albany Democrat'' had been purchased by local school superintendent William L. Jackson and his business partner, Ralph Cronise.
It would be this pair who owned the merged publication from its establishment in 1925, with ownership passing to William Jackson's son, Grant Jackson, following his father's death.
Late in the 1970s, the ''Democrat-Herald'' moved from individual to corporate ownership, when media giant
Capital Cities
A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the ...
purchased the paper from Grant Jackson's heirs.
So-called CapCities would purchase the
American Broadcast Company
The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American commercial broadcast television network. It is the flagship property of the ABC Entertainment Group division of The Walt Disney Company. The network is headquartered in Burbank, Califor ...
(ABC) in 1985, only to themselves be acquired in 1996 by the
Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
.
Disney immediately began to divest itself of the newspapers acquired in the merger, with the ''Democrat-Herald'' sold to
Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises, Inc. is a publicly traded American media company. It publishes 77 daily newspapers in 26 states, and more than 350 weekly, classified, and specialty publications. Lee Enterprises was founded in 1890 by Alfred Wilson Lee and is b ...
of
Davenport, Iowa in 1998 — a media company which already owned the ''
Corvallis Gazette-Times
The ''Corvallis Gazette-Times'' is a daily newspaper for Corvallis, Benton County, Oregon, United States. The newspaper, along with its sister publication, the ''Albany Democrat-Herald'' of neighboring Albany, Oregon, is owned by Lee Enterprise ...
,'' located approximately 10 miles away.
Schedule and circulation
Having always been an afternoon newspaper on weekdays with a delivery deadline of 5:30 P.M., on October 4, 2010, it became a morning paper every day with a deadline of 6:30 A.M. on weekdays and 7:00 A.M. on weekends.
As of 2016, the ''Democrat-Herald'' has a daily circulation of about 7,500.
[Albany Democrat-Herald.]
Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association
The Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association is a trade association for all paid-circulation daily, weekly, and multi-weekly newspapers in the U.S. state of Oregon. It represents and promotes newspapers, and encourages excellence in reporting and ...
. Accessed March 31, 2016. The combined Sunday edition has a circulation of approximately 8000.
Footnotes
Further reading
* Robert J. Chandler, "Crushing Dissent: The Pacific Coast Tests Lincoln's Policy of Suppression, 1862," ''Civil War History,'' vol. 30 (September 1984), pp. 235–254.
* Floyd J. McKay
"Albany Democrat-Herald,"''The Oregon Encyclopedia,'' Oregon Historical Society.
* George Turnbull, ''History of Oregon Newspapers.'' Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1939.
External links
*
{{Lee Enterprises
Publications established in 1865
1865 establishments in Oregon
Newspapers published in Oregon
Lee Enterprises publications
Companies based in Albany, Oregon
Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association
Daily newspapers published in the United States