The Portsmouth Herald

Infobox Newspaper
name = The Portsmouth Herald


caption =
type = Daily newspaper
format = Broadsheet
foundation =
ceased publication =
price =
owners = Ottaway Community Newspapers, a division of News Corporation
publisher = John Tabor
editor = Howard Altschiller
language =
political =
circulation = 15,224 daily, 20,936 Sunday in 2006 [ [http://www.seacoastonline.com/contact/index.htm Seacoast Media Group Contact Info] , accessed January 10, 2007.]
headquarters = 111 Maplewood Avenue, Portsmouth, New Hampshire 03842 USA
ISSN =
website = [http://www.seacoastonline.com/ Seacoastonline.com]

"The Portsmouth Herald" (and "Seacoast Sunday") is a seven-day daily newspaper serving greater Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Its coverage area also includes the municipalities of Greenland, New Castle, Newington and Rye, New Hampshire; and Eliot, Kittery, Kittery Point and South Berwick, Maine.

News Corporation acquired "The Herald" when it bought former owner Dow Jones & Company for US$5 billion in in late 2007. Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., reportedly told investors before the deal that he would be "selling the local newspapers fairly quickly" after the Dow Jones purchase."Ottaway Papers Might Be Sold, Including 16 in N.E.". [http://www.nepa.org/Bulletin%20Archives/NEPA_Bulletin_Dec07.pdf "NEPA Bulletin" (Boston, Mass.), December 2007] , page 3.]

Unlike most New England daily newspapers, "The Herald" has a higher circulation today than six years ago. Its editors in 2001 credited the newspaper's resurgence with the introduction of the "Wow! factor" -- front-page stories on controversial or sensational topics that appeal to younger readers. [Nicholson, Joe. "Portsmouth Herald Does Not Take the Traditional Approach to Reporting," "Brandweek", April 30, 2001.]

Ottaway

"The Herald" and its sister weekly newspapers in New Hampshire and Maine form the Seacoast Media Group, a subsidiary of Ottaway Community Newspapers, itself a division of News Corporation. It was acquired for Ottaway by Dow Jones & Company, which formerly owned the chain, December 1, 1997,Kittredge, Clare. "A News War Takes Shape in Portsmouth". "The Boston Globe", November 2, 1997] in a newspaper swap in which Thomson Corporation gained "The News-Sun" of Sun City, Arizona. [Dow Jones News Service, [http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/10-97/10-01-97/a08bu033.htm "S-T Parent Trades for N.H. Paper"] , October 1, 1997. Accessed January 11, 2007.]

Competition

During the tail end of Thomson's ownership of "The Herald", it was seen as corporate and out-of-touch with the local community. Several weekly newspapers sprang up to challenge it in Portsmouth and surrounding towns. [Robinson, J. Dennis. [http://www.seacoastnh.com/375th/journal0798.html "July 10."] July 10, 1998. Accessed January 11, 2007.]

Years before buying "The Herald", Ottaway started a weekly newspaper, the "Portsmouth Press", in 1987. For six years, that paper competed with the daily. Its publisher, John Tabor, eventually became publisher of "The Herald".

"The Herald"'s strongest daily competitors are "Foster's Daily Democrat" in nearby Dover, New Hampshire, and the statewide New Hampshire Union Leader. In the late 1990s, the Geo. J. Foster Company launched "Foster's Sunday Citizen", to compete with "Herald Sunday" and the state's largest Sunday paper, the "New Hampshire Sunday News". Around the same time, "The Herald"'s Ottaway managers announced they would begin distributing "Herald Sunday" outside of the daily newspaper's coverage area, into the Exeter and Hampton, New Hampshire areas, where Ottaway owns weeklies.

The paper also faces hometown competition from an alternative newsweekly, "The New Hampshire Gazette". The original "Gazette", the oldest newspaper in New Hampshire, was published as the Sunday edition of "The Herald" from the 1890s to 1960, when the Sunday paper began carrying the name "Herald". In 1989, a descendent of the "Gazette"'s founder began publishing an alternative newspaper under that name.

Management

- Asst. GM

BTI Clark - Operations Mgr.

Martha Laskey - Mailroom

- Accounting

- Advertising

- Composing

John Tabor - Editor

Alan Laskey - Pressroom

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.seacoastonline.com/ Seacoastonline.com, "The Portsmouth Herald" Website]
* [http://www.ottaway.com/ Ottaway Newspapers Inc. Website]