The Wichita Eagle

Infobox Newspaper
name =


caption = The July 27, 2005 front page
of "The Wichita Eagle"
type = Daily newspaper
format = Broadsheet
foundation = 1872
owners = The McClatchy Company
headquarters = 825 E. Douglas
Wichita, KS 67201
USA
editor = Sherry Chisenhall
publisher = Pam Siddall
circulation = 90,648 Daily
149,230 Sunday [http://www.mcclatchy.com/146/story/366.html]
website = [http://www.kansas.com/ www.kansas.com]

"The Wichita Eagle" is a daily newspaper published in Wichita, Kansas. It is owned by The McClatchy Company, which publishes 31 other newspapers, including the "The Kansas City Star". It is the largest newspaper in Wichita, Kansas and the surrounding area.

History

The "Eagle" was founded and first edited by Marshall Murdock, and had its inception in the spring of 1872. Its chief competitor, the "Beacon," launched in October of that year. The two papers competed for close to 100 years until 1960, when the "Eagle" purchased the "Beacon". Both newspapers continued to be published, the "Eagle" in the morning and the "Beacon" in the evening. In 1973, Ridder Publications bought both newspapers. Ridder and Knight Newspapers merged to form Knight Ridder in 1974, which combined the two newspapers into "The Wichita Eagle-Beacon" in 1980. In 1989, the "Beacon" name was dropped, and the newspaper became "The Wichita Eagle".

The paper built its national reputation largely under the editorship of W. Davis "Buzz" Merritt Jr., one of the earliest and most vocal proponents of Civic Journalism (also known as Public Journalism) which believes that journalists and their audiences are not merely spectators in political and social processes, and that journalists should not simply report dry facts as a pretense that their reporting represents unadulterated neutrality, which is impossible. (see Objectivity in Journalism) Instead, the Civic Journalism movement seeks to treat readers and community members as participants. With a small, but growing following, Civic Journalism has become as much of an ideology as it is a practice.

"The Wichita Eagle" was at the forefront of this movement. For example, for elections held in 1990, the paper polled 500 residents to identify their top concerns for the state. Then, over the course of the elections, reporters for the paper attempted to pin down the candidates on how they felt about these issues, and printed a pull-out section each week with a list of the issues and where the candidates stated they stood. If the candidate refused to take a stand, that was also reported. This is in stark contrast to the former practice of simply reporting the facts about a candidate's speech. As a result, voter turnout in the "Eagle"'s primary circulation area was 43.3 percent, compared with 31 percent for the rest of the state.

The "Eagle" became part of The McClatchy Company when McClatchy bought Knight Ridder in 2006.

References

*H. Craig Miner, "Wichita: The Early Years, 1865-80" (University of Nebraska Press, October 1, 1982) (Out of Print) ISBN 0-8032-3077-X
*W. Davis Merritt, "" (Amacom Books, March 30, 2005) ISBN 0-8144-0854-0
*Michael Hoyt, (July, 1992) [http://archives.cjr.org/year/92/4/wichita.asp The Wichita Experiment] "Columbia Journalism Review"
*The McClatchy Company, [http://www.mcclatchy.com/146/story/366.html Newspaper Profiles: The Wichita Eagle] , accessed October 17, 2006.

External links

* [http://www.kansas.com/ The "Eagle"'s web site]