''The Herald-Sun'' is an American, English language 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, sports a ...
in
Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
, published by the
McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states and ...
.
History
''The Herald-Sun'' began publication on January 1, 1991, as the result of a merger of ''The Durham Morning Herald'' (19191990) and ''The Durham Sun'' (19131990). ''The Herald-Sun'' and ''The Durham Morning Herald'' had previously been owned by the Rollins family of Durham, which had been in management positions since 1895. Edward Tyler Rollins Jr., former owner, board chairman and publisher of ''The Herald-Sun'', died November 5, 2006, just shy of two years after selling to Paxton Media Group.
Early history
''The Durham Morning Herald'' began publication in 1893, as a result of the reorganization of ''
The Durham Globe'' from a daily to a weekly paper. Four former employees of the downsized ''Globe'', itself an outgrowth of the merger of Durham's first daily, ''
The Tobacco Plant
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' and ''The Durham Daily Recorder'', organized a competitor newspaper, ''The Globe Herald'', which would soon be renamed ''The Morning Herald''.
In 1929, the Durham Morning Herald Company acquired ''The Durham Sun'', an evening daily that had been in publication in one form or another since 1889.
Merger
The late Rick Kaspar was the first person outside of the Rollins family to run the century-old newspaper. He was recruited by the Rollins Family to make changes and bring the company into the 21st century of newspaper publishing. In 1991, he successfully merged the ''Morning Herald'' and the ''Sun'' to form ''The Herald Sun''. "Rick was devoted to his family, to his community and to his newspaper," noted Durham Herald Co. Chairman E.T. Rollins Jr.
Acquisition by Paxton Media Group
On December 3, 2004, The Durham Herald Co., the parent company of ''The Herald Sun'' and ''
The Chapel Hill Herald'' announced that Paxton Media Group had purchased the company from the locally based Rollins family. The sum paid by Paxton was not publicly announced (the two companies are both privately held), but sources placed it at about $124 million. Pre-sale appraisals of the company had placed its value at roughly $70 million. The paper has constantly jettisoned employees while seeing its circulation dwindle dramatically ever since the sale.
First downsizing and reorganization
Upon assumption of operations, on January 3, 2005 Paxton's executives fired 81 of the newspaper's approximately 350 employees, including president and
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
David Hughey and longtime executive editor, vice-president
Bill Hawkins, award-winning photographer Ross Taylor, award-winning editorial cartoonist John Cole and longtime columnist Jim Wise.
The firings were unexpected and abrupt, many employees being told they were fired upon returning from lunch, and then being escorted to the parking lot.
The new editor,
Bob Ashley
Robert G. Ashley (born July 4, 1953, Charleston, West Virginia) is an American politician from West Virginia. A Republican, Ashley served in the West Virginia Senate for the 3rd district between 2015 and 2017. He was previously a member of the ...
said the job cuts were made because of financial reasons. He explained that fired employees were escorted from the building immediately due to security concerns and on the advice of the company's lawyers.
Second downsizing and reorganization
On July 30, 2008, ''Herald-Sun'' editor Bob Ashley announced a new round of staff layoffs and content reductions, citing the paper's poor revenues and admitting that the quality and quantity of the information presented in ''The Herald-Sun'' was not satisfying readers.
Ashley also noted that a number of stand-alone feature sections would be consolidated into a nonetheless reduced metro section and that overall article length would be reduced, while the number of informational graphics and informational sidebars would increase,
a move that appears to signal a further reduction in the depth of local and national reporting. According to Ashley, the shorter article length, along with the recent reassignment of two staffers to news reporting will increase local coverage, much like similarly promised increases in local reporting that followed on the heels of Paxton's earlier staff cuts at ''The Herald-Sun''.
Third downsizing and reorganization
On May 15, 2009, there was yet another reduction that included seven members of the newsroom staff among others.
Fourth downsizing and shift to Kentucky production
On July 28, 2011, seven staff positions were eliminated from ''The Herald-Sun'' newsroom, leaving a fewer than 20 editorial staff positions at the Durham paper.
In the course announcing the layoffs, Publisher Rick Bean also announced that, as of August 14, 2011, production duties, namely page design and copy editing, would be shifted from Durham-based staff to the staff of the
Owensboro
Owensboro is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Daviess County, Kentucky, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in the state by population. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest of Lou ...
''
Messenger-Inquirer
''The Messenger-Inquirer'' is a local newspaper in Owensboro, Kentucky. ''The Messenger-Inquirer'' serves 15,087 daily and 20,383 Sunday readers in five counties in western Kentucky.
History
The newspaper's roots trace back to 1875, when Lee Lum ...
'', in Kentucky.
Fifth downsizing
On September 25, 2013, there was yet another staff reduction, with six staffers sent packing including two in the newsroom. Among the casualties was sports editor Jimmy DuPree, who had been with the paper for more than 25 years.
Acquisition by The McClatchy Company
In late December 2016, Paxton sold The Herald-Sun to
The McClatchy Company
The McClatchy Company, commonly referred to as simply McClatchy, is an American publishing company incorporated under Delaware's General Corporation Law and based in Sacramento, California. It operates 29 daily newspapers in fourteen states an ...
. The acquisition made The Herald-Sun a sister paper to the other major daily newspaper in the Triangle, ''
The News & Observer
''The News & Observer'' is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the ''Charlotte Observer''). The paper has bee ...
'' of Raleigh.
Controversy
Jim Cooney, the lawyer of one of the three Duke University lacrosse players involved the 2006
Duke lacrosse case
The Duke lacrosse case was a widely reported 2006 criminal case in Durham, North Carolina, United States in which three members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of rape. The three students were David Evans, Collin ...
named ''The Herald-Sun'' in a press conference that was televised live on many national news networks on April 11, 2007. Saying that ''The Herald-Sun'' is one of the major "cowards" of the case, Cooney stated that ''The Herald-Sun'' empowered
Nifong to go forward with a weak case by not "bother
ngto stand up and demand proper processes
ndthe presumption of innocence," while "publishing what they knew were lies, and repeating them."
[Duke Lacrosse Press Conference](_blank)
''CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
.'' April 11, 2007. ''The Herald-Sun'' also came under fire for having "not written a single editorial critical of the way in which Mike Nifong proceeded" at the time the North Carolina Attorney General declared the defendants "innocent."
This occurred despite the fact that the North Carolina State Bar had filed two rounds of ethics charges against him, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys demanded that Nifong remove himself from the case, and many other news organizations demanded that the district attorney step down.
[ Duke Rape Suspects Speak Out](_blank)
''60 Minutes.'' October 15, 2006.
. ''The News & Observer
''The News & Observer'' is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the largest in circulation in the state (second is the ''Charlotte Observer''). The paper has bee ...
''. August 6, 2006.The prosecutor is guilty
''The Star-Ledger.'' December 30, 2006.
Awards
''The Herald-Sun'' won nine awards in the 2009 North Carolina Press Association contest. The paper won General Excellence in its circulation category. ''The Herald-Sun'' received first-place awards for sports photography, serious columns and news section design in its circulation division. It also received second place for best use of an interactive features on its web site; and third place in news enterprise and investigative reporting, general news photography, criticism, and appearance and design.
Web site
''The Herald-Sun's'' website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google Search, Google, Facebook, Amaz ...
was first launched in 1995 as a basic online information site, with relatively little dynamic content from the print edition of the newspaper. Despite the basic offerings, the site won a Newspaper Association of America Digital Edge Award for its online guide to local and national candidates during the 1996 elections.
On November 7, 2000
heraldsun.com
was relaunched as a dynamic news site with content drawn directly from the print edition, wire services, as well as updates and features on local news stories during the course of the day. As of June 2003, the site was receiving more than 3 million page views per month and had been honored more than seven times for its design and innovation.
Changes under Paxton Media Group
Following the newspaper's purchase by the Paxton Media Group in 2005, the website was dramatically pared back, as a majority of the IT staff and many of the newspaper's local content providers were dismissed in the mass firings of January 3, 2005. Apart from an automated feed of AP wire stories, the site was no longer updated during the day, even during the course of major local and national events.
A redesign of the site, in early 2007, made an effort to de-emphasize the AP-wire feed headlines, which were no longer placed at the top of the page. The redesign also introduced compulsory, free, registration for users wishing to read any article, including the AP-wire feed stories.
In 2009, the Web site technology was outsourced t
Matchbin Inc.
and later t
Radiate Media
but it is still managed by staff at The Herald-Sun.
On May 12, 2013, publisher Rick Bean announced the company's plans to sell its 23-year-old, 100,000-square-foot building on Pickett Road.
Circulation
''The Herald-Sun's'' geographic emphasis is on the western counties of the Research Triangle
The Research Triangle, or simply The Triangle, are both common nicknames for a metropolitan area in the Piedmont region of North Carolina in the United States, anchored by the cities of Raleigh and Durham and the town of Chapel Hill, home to ...
area of North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
that surround the City of Durham and the Town of Chapel Hill, including Durham County, Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
, Person County
Person County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 39,097 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county seat is Roxboro, North Carolina, Roxboro.
Person County is inc ...
, Granville County
Granville County is a county located on the northern border of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 60,992. Its county seat is Oxford.
Granville County encompasses Oxford, NC Micropolitan Statistical Are ...
and Chatham County. In the early to mid 90s, the paper also was circulated in Wake County and had a Cary
Cary may refer to:
Places
;United States
* Cary, Illinois, part of the Chicago metropolitan area
* Cary, Indiana, part of the Indianapolis metropolitan area
* Cary, Miami County, Indiana
* Cary, Maine
* Cary, Mississippi
* Cary, North Carolina ...
-based edition and offices.
Since Paxton Media Group's assumption of ''The Herald Sun'' operations, on January 4, 2005, circulation has steadily and rapidly declined. Between January 1 and March 31, 2008, the paper was estimated to reach less than 20 percent of households in Durham and Orange counties, its primary subscriber base. Furthermore, having lost 10.8 percent of its weekday subscribers between March 2007 and March 2008, ''The Herald-Sun'' suffered the largest circulation loss of any daily newspaper in North Carolina, and was only one of two that lost more than 6 percent, the other being High Point's Paxton-owned ''Enterprise''. By comparison, ''The Herald Sun'' primary market competitor, the Raleigh ''News and Observer'' lost less than one percent of its daily subscribers in the same period.
Notable employees
For the ''Durham Sun''
* Lloyd Shearer
Lloyd "Skip" Shearer (December 20, 1916 – May 27, 2001Wadler, Joyce." ''The New York Times''. May 27, 2001. Retrieved on August 5, 2014.) was an American celebrity gossip columnist. From 1958 to 1991, he wrote "Walter Scott's Personality Parade" ...
(later a gossip columnist)[Woo, Elaine.]
Lloyd Shearer; Leader of the 'Personality Parade'
(Obituaries). ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''. May 26, 2001. Retrieved on August 5, 2014. Also printed in:
Lloyd Shearer, Wrote `Personality Parade'
In: ''Sun Sentinel
The ''Sun Sentinel'' (also known as the ''South Florida Sun Sentinel'', known until 2008 as the ''Sun-Sentinel'', and stylized on its masthead as ''SunSentinel'') is the main daily newspaper of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as surrounding B ...
''. May 28, 2001.
*Mena Webb
Wilhelmena Katherine Fuller "Mena" Webb (April 26, 1915 – May 23, 2012) was an American writer and editor. She taught writing classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Evening College, was a columnist and society editor at ' ...
, columnist and society editor
See also
* List of newspapers in North Carolina
There have been newspapers in North Carolina since the ''North-Carolina Gazette'' began publication in the Province of North Carolina in 1751. As of January 2020, there were approximately 260 newspapers in publication in North Carolina. While pr ...
References
External links
Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herald-Sun, The
Mass media in Durham, North Carolina
Daily newspapers published in North Carolina
Newspapers established in 1853
1853 establishments in North Carolina