Courier Journal

The Courier-Journal is available throughout the greater Louisville area, and throughout almost all of Kentucky.

The Courier-Journal, nicknamed the "C-J", is the main newspaper for the city of Louisville, Kentucky, USA. According to the 1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook, the paper is the 48th largest daily paper in the United States and the single largest in Kentucky.

The Courier-Journal also owns the alternative weekly paper Velocity.

History

The Courier-Journal was created from the merger of several newspapers introduced in Kentucky in the 1800s.

Pioneer paper The Focus of Politics, Commerce and Literature, was founded in 1826 in Louisville when the city was an early settlement of less than 7,000 individuals. In 1830 a new newspaper, The Louisville Daily Journal, began distribution in the city and, in 1832, absorbed The Focus of Politics, Commerce and Literature.

In 1844, another newspaper, the Louisville Morning Courier was founded in Louisville. The Louisville Daily Journal and the Louisville Morning Courier were the news leaders in Louisville and were politically opposed throughout the Civil War; The Journal was against slavery while the Courier was pro-Confederacy.

In the mid-1860s, near the end of the Civil War, Henry Watterson became the editor of The Journal. During secret negotions in 1868, The Journal and the Courier merged and the first edition of The Courier-Journal was delivered to Louisvillians on Sunday morning, 8 November, 1868.

The Courier-Journal founded a companion afternoon edition of the paper, The Louisville Times, in May 1884.

In 1918, Judge Robert Worth Bingham purchased two-thirds interest in the newspapers and acquired the remaining stock in 1920. In 1933, the newspapers passed to his son, Barry Bingham, Sr., and in 1971, Barry Bingham, Jr. succeeded his father as the newspapers' editor and publisher.

Barry Bingham, Jr. served as editor and publisher until he resigned in 1986, shortly after his father announced that the newspaper company was for sale.

In July 1986, Gannett Company, Inc. purchased the newspaper company and appointed George N. Gill President and Publisher. Gill had been with the newspaper and the Binghams for over two decades, working his way up from reporter to Chief Executive Officer of the Bingham Companies. In 1993, Gill retired and Edward E. Manassah became President and Publisher.

In early 1987, publication of The Louisville Times, an afternoon publication that had experienced declining readership, ceased.

As of 2005, the C-J has received nine Pulitzer Prizes and is read by an estimated 492,000 people daily and 670,900 people on Sundays.[1]

Awards

Pulitzer Prize

• 1918 for Editorial Writing, Henry Watterson for his two World War I editorials "War Has Its Compensation" (10 April, 1918), and "Vae Victis" (17 May, 1918).
• 1926 for Reporting, William Burke "Skeets" Miller for his coverage of the attempts to rescue Floyd Collins trapped in Sand Cave, now part of Mammoth Cave National Park (February, 1925).
• 1956 for Editorial Cartooning, Robert York for his cartoon "Achilles" showing a bulging figure of American prosperity tapering to a weak heel labeled "farm prices". Appeared in The Louisville Times, (16 September, 1955).
• 1967 for Public Service, awarded to The Courier-Journal for its "meritorious public service" during 1966 in its fight against the ravages of Kentucky strip mining.
• 1969 for Local General or Spot News Reporting, John Fetterman for coverage of the funeral for a Vietnam casualty from Kentucky, "PFC Gibson comes home" (28 July, 1968).
• 1976 for Feature Photography, awarded to the photographic staff of The Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times for photo coverage of court-ordered busing in Jefferson County in 1975.
• 1978 for Local General or Spot News Reporting, Rich Whitt for his coverage and three months of investigation of the disastrous 28 May, 1977 fire at the Beverly Hills Supper Club, Southgate, Kentucky in Campbell County.
• 1980 for International Reporting, Joel Brinkley, reporter, and Jay Mather, photographer, for international reporting in a series of articles, "Living the Cambodian Nightmare," their vivid account of refugees in Southeast Asia (December, 1979).
• 1989 for General Reporting, awarded to The Courier-Journal staff for its exemplary initial coverage of a bus crash in Carroll County, Kentucky that claimed 27 lives and its subsequent thorough and effective examination of the causes and implications of the tragedy (1988).
• 2005 for Editorial Cartooning, awarded to Nick Anderson.

External links

• Courier-Journal website