Telegram & Gazette
{{short description|Newspaper in Worcester, Massachusetts}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox newspaper
| name = Telegram & Gazette
| image = border
| caption = The September 11, 2008, front page
of the Telegram & Gazette
| format = Broadsheet
| owners = Gannett
| type = Daily newspaper
| foundation = January 1, 1866
| publisher =
| editor =
| headquarters = 100 Front Street
Worcester, Massachusetts 01608, United States
| circulation = 25,073
| circulation_date = 2018
| ISSN = 1050-4184
| website = {{URL|http://www.telegram.com}}
}}
The Telegram & Gazette (and Sunday Telegram) is the only daily newspaper of Worcester, Massachusetts. The paper, headquartered at 100 Front Street and known locally as the Telegram or the T & G, offers coverage of all of Worcester County, as well as surrounding areas of the western suburbs of Boston, Western Massachusetts, and several towns in Windham County in northeastern Connecticut.
History
On January 22, 1913, the Worcester Telegram ran a story ("Thorpe with Professional Baseball Team Says Clancy"), soon picked up by other papers, that led to Jim Thorpe being stripped of his 1912 Olympic titles, medals and awards.Golus, Carrie. Jim Thorpe. Twenty First Century Books, 2008: Minneapolis, p. 71.
Until the 1980s, two papers—the Worcester Telegram in the morning and the Evening Gazette in the afternoon—were published by the same company, with separate editorial staffs in some departments. The two were merged into a single Telegram & Gazette upon their acquisition{{disputed inline|date=May 2018|reason=[https://lccn.loc.gov/sn83045596 Library of Congress] catalogs Worcester Telegram as "Worcester, Mass. : Telegram Newspaper Co., 1888–1989"}} by Chronicle Publishing Company, publishers of the San Francisco Chronicle, in 1986.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} The Chronicle sold the Telegram & Gazette to The New York Times Company in 1999 for $300 million.
The paper's previous owners also owned Worcester radio station WTAG until selling it after the newspapers were divested, in 1987.
The Telegram & Gazette moved its headquarters from a building on Franklin Street to the Mercantile Center in 2012.
In October 2013, the Telegram & Gazette was bought from The New York Times Company by John W. Henry's Boston Globe Media Partners as part of his purchase of The Boston Globe.{{cite magazine |author= |date=November 20, 2014 |title=Worcester Telegram & Gazette sold again |work=Worcester Magazine |publisher=Holden Landmark Corporation |issn=0191-4960 |url=https://www.worcestermag.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/20/breaking-worcester-telegram-gazette-sold/10933489007/}} Only a month later, Henry announced his intention to sell the paper.{{cite news |title=John Henry says he will sell Telegram & Gazette |first=Beth |last=Healy |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/11/26/john-henry-sell-worcester-telegram-gazette/NQI9Lu6jVz7NdTfqRSIdRP/story.html |newspaper=The Boston Globe |date=November 26, 2013 |access-date=December 3, 2013}}{{cite news |last=Hamilton |first=Katherine |date=May 13, 2024 |title=The new Worcester media, part 1: The downsizing of the Telegram |work=Worcester Business Journal |publisher=New England Business Media |url=https://www.wbjournal.com/article/the-new-worcester-media-part-1-the-downsizing-of-the-telegram}} From 2009 until March 2014, retired editor Harry Whitin and Ralph Crowley of Polar Beverages explored purchasing the paper.{{cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Dan |date=March 7, 2014 |title=Local Buyers Exit Worcester Telegram Bidding |work=wgbh.org |publisher=WGBH Educational Foundation |url=https://www.wgbh.org/news/commentary/2014-03-07/local-buyers-exit-worcester-telegram-bidding}}{{cite news |last=Chesto |first=Jon |date=May 22, 2014 |title=The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester is sold to a Florida firm and not a local buyer |work=Boston Business Journal |publisher=American City Business Journals |issn=0746-4975 |oclc=423525229 |url=https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2014/05/the-telegram-gazette-of-worcester-is-sold-to.html?page=all |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140610233756/http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2014/05/the-telegram-gazette-of-worcester-is-sold-to.html?page=all |archive-date=June 10, 2014}} In May 2014, Boston Globe Media Partners sold the paper to Florida-based Halifax Media Group for $20 million,{{cite news |last=Chesto |first=Jon |date=November 21, 2014 |title=Here's why GateHouse ended up buying the Telegram & Gazette after all |work=Boston Business Journal |publisher=American City Business Journals |issn=0746-4975 |oclc=423525229 |url=https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2014/11/heres-why-gatehouse-ended-up-buying-the-telegram.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141121023613/http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2014/11/heres-why-gatehouse-ended-up-buying-the-telegram.html |archive-date=November 21, 2014}}{{cite news |last=McKenna |first=Brendan |date=November 21, 2014 |title=Worcester Telegram & Gazette changes hands again to fourth owner in a year |work=MassLive |publication-place=Worcester, Massachusetts |publisher=Advance Local Media |url=https://www.masslive.com/news/worcester/2014/11/telegram_gazette_parent_compan.html}}{{cite news |last=Healy |first=Beth |date=May 21, 2014 |title=Worcester Telegram & Gazette sold to Halifax Media Partners |work=Boston Globe |issn=0743-1791 |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/21/boston-globe-sells-worcester-telegram-gazette-halifax-media-partners/8GIYbZULsx96Xf7ERPz05L/story.html}}{{Cite news |last=Sutner |first=Shaun |title=Halifax Media of Florida to buy Telegram & Gazette |work=Telegram & Gazette |access-date=June 13, 2014 |date=May 21, 2014 |url=http://www.telegram.com/article/20140521/NEWS/305219465/1053}} who immediately laid off 20 of the Telegram & Gazette
The Telegram & Gazette has been referred to as the newspaper of record in Central Massachusetts. It has also been described as a ghost newspaper, a publication that continues publishing but is a shell of its former self.{{cite news |last=Jonas |first=Michael |date=August 15, 2019 |title=‘No more real newspaper’ in Worcester |work=CommonWealth Beacon |publication-place=Boston |publisher=Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth |url=https://commonwealthbeacon.org/economy/no-more-real-newspaper-in-worcester/}}
The Telegram & Gazette published over 2,400 articles in September 2011, and 506 in September 2023.
=Circulation=
- 1999: 107,400{{cite web |url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/TIMES+CO.+PURCHASE+OF+PAPER+RECEIVES+NEWSROOM+ACCOLADES+Telegram+%26...-a058631717 |title=TIMES CO. PURCHASE OF PAPER RECEIVES NEWSROOM ACCOLADES Telegram & Gazette staff's relief may fade under new owner |author= |date=October 25, 1999 |website=The Free Library |publisher=Hoover's |access-date=July 1, 2013}}
- 2012: 74,563 (weekday){{Citation needed|date=July 2019}}
- 2013: 74,000 (weekday) and 78,000 (Sunday)
- 2018: 22,400 (weekday){{cite web |url=http://abcas3.accessabc.com/ecirc/newsform.asp |title=FAS-FAX Report: Circulation Averages for the Six Months Ended March 31, 2012 |location=Arlington Heights, Ill. |publisher=Audit Bureau of Circulations |access-date=May 21, 2012}}
- 2023: 12,831 (8,698 print and 4,133 paid electronic, weekday), 16,457 (12,403 print, 4,054 paid electronic, Sunday)
Quality
A comparison of T & G reporting in 2019 vs. 2010 indicates a substantial increase in transcription journalism, while also affirming that the paper continues to practice accountability journalism. T & G based a quarter of its 2019 stories regarding a major construction project on press releases, in comparison to its coverage of a similar event in 2010 which did not use press releases for any articles.
Sections and features
File:100 Front Street - Worcester, Massachusetts.JPG
The weekday Telegram & Gazette contains national, state and local news, as well as sports, business, and a feature stories. On Thursdays Worcester Magazine is inserted in the paper highlighting local artists and events in the area.
The paper's regular reporters also contribute regular or occasional columns with names such as "Barnestorming", "City Hall Notebook", "Politics and the City", etc. The local news section also includes local news stories and obituaries.
All editorials and letters to the editor appear in the regional opinion and op-ed pages of the main news section.
The Sunday Telegram includes the county's largest classified ad listings, Business Matters section, News, Local and Editorial pages, Living and Homes, and Cars sections, a tabloid-sized comic section and an in-house created Arts, Culture and Travel Section, which replaced similar sections that used to be reprinted in full from The Boston Globe.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corporation owns Coulter Press, which publishes several weekly newspapers in suburban towns northeast and east of Worcester. The Telegram staff also produces Worcester Living (formerly Worcester Quarterly), a local lifestyle magazine. Before their sale to Community Newspaper Company in 1993, the T&G also owned the Hudson Sun and Marlboro Enterprise daily newspapers and Beacon Communications Corporation weekly newspapers in western Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
References
{{Reflist}}
{{refbegin}}
- {{Cite news |last=Sit |first=Mary |date=February 10, 1989 |title=Publisher Resigns at Worcester Paper; 'Irreversible Difference' in Philosophy Cited |work=The Boston Globe |at=Economy section, p. 21}}
{{refend}}
Further reading
- {{Cite news | issue = Fall 2014 | last = Mohl | first = Bruce | title = The Man Who Lied to Worcester | work = CommonWealth Magazine | access-date = 3 May 2018 | date = 15 November 2014 | url = https://commonwealthmagazine.org/economy/002-the-man-who-lied-to-worcester/ }}
External links
{{commons category}}
- {{official website|http://www.telegram.com }}
{{Gannett}}
{{Newspapers in Massachusetts}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Telegram and Gazette}}
Category:Newspapers published in Massachusetts
Category:The New York Times publications