Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is the primary newspaper in Milwaukee and is distributed widely throughout the state of Wisconsin. The Journal Sentinel has a weekday circulation of 250 000 copies and a Sunday circulation of over 400 000.

History

The Journal Sentinel was first printed in April 1995, the result of the consolidation of operations between the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel, which had been owned by the same company, Journal Communications, for more than thirty years.

Related Topics:
April - 1995

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The Sentinel began in 1837 as a weekly published by Solomon Juneau, a businessman who became the first mayor of Milwaukee. It became a daily in the mid-1840s. Following Juneau's death it passed through the hands of several owners, before being sold to the Hearst Corporation in 1924. Operations of the Sentinel were joined to Hearst's afternoon paper, The Wisconsin News; a joint Sunday edition was published as The Sunday Telegram. The News closed in 1939. Hearst operated the Sentinel until 1962, when, after a long and costly strike, Hearst closed the paper, claiming that it had lost money for years. The Journal Company, concerned about the loss of an important voice (and facing questions about its dominance of the Milwaukee media market), bought the name, the subscription lists and the "good will" of the Sentinel. The News-Sentinel building at Plankinton and Michigan was torn down; the presses were shipped to Hearst's San Francisco papers, and Sentinel operations moved to Journal Square. The Sentinel was a morning broadsheet, published Sunday through Saturday; following the sale to The Journal Company it became a Monday-through-Saturday paper.

Related Topics:
1837 - Solomon Juneau - Hearst Corporation - 1962 - Broadsheet

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The Journal was started in 1882, in competition with four other English-language, four German- and two Polish-language dailies. Its first editor was Lucius Nieman, who wanted to steer the paper away from the political biases and yellow journalism common at the time. Nieman was an innovative and crusading editor, and under his watch the paper won five Pulitzer Prizes and numerous other awards. Nieman's successor, Harry J. Grant, introduced an employee stock-purchase plan in 1937, and as a result 98% of Journal stock was held by its employees. A small bloc of Journal stock was given to Harvard College, and funded the Nieman Fellows program for promising journalists.

Related Topics:
1882 - Lucius Nieman - Yellow journalism - Pulitzer Prize - Harry J. Grant - Employee stock-purchase plan - Harvard - Nieman Fellows

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Competing with two raucous Hearst papers filled with gossip, features and comic strips, Grant took a more sober approach to news presentation, emphasizing local news and refusing to carry any syndicated material. Under Grant, the Journal acquired and kept a reputation as a leading voice of midwestern liberalism. During the 1950s, the Journal was outspoken in its opposition to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his search for communist influence in government. At its circulation peak in the early 1960s, the Journal sold about 400,000 copies daily and 600,000 on Sunday. The Journal was a Monday-through-Saturday afternoon broadsheet, also publishing Sunday mornings; as an afternoon paper, it persisted as a rarity having dominance in the market place up to 1995, when consolidation of the Journal and Sentinel, it beame a seven-day morning paper.

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The legacies of both papers as separate entities is still acknowledged on the editorial page masthead today, with Juneau, Nieman, and Harry J. Grant's names below their respective newspaper's name.

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