Anchorage Daily News

Infobox Newspaper
name =


caption = The September 11, 2006 front page
of "The Anchorage Daily News".
type = Daily newspaper
format = Broadsheet
foundation = 1946
ceased publication =
price =
owners = The McClatchy Company
publisher = Michael Sexton
editor = Pat Dougherty
language =
political =
circulation = 71,711 Daily
89,423 Sunday
headquarters = 1001 Northway Drive
Anchorage, AK 99508
United States
ISSN =
website = [http://www.adn.com/ adn.com]

The "Anchorage Daily News" is a daily newspaper based in Anchorage, Alaska, in the United States. With a circulation of about 71,711 daily and 89,423 Sundays [http://www.mcclatchy.com/146/story/447.html] , it is by far the most widely read newspaper in the state of Alaska.

The current editor of the "Anchorage Daily News" is Pat Dougherty.

The newspaper has about 450 full-time employees in Anchorage headquarters and Matanuska-Susitna Valley, Kenai Peninsula, Juneau, and Washington, D.C. bureaus.

The beginning

The "Anchorage Daily News" was born as the weekly "Anchorage News", publishing its first issue January 13, 1946. The paper’s founder and first publisher was Norman C. Brown. The newspaper became an afternoon daily in May 1948, although it wouldn't publish a Sunday newspaper until June 13, 1965. By then, the "Anchorage Daily News" had become a morning newspaper, making that switch on April 13, 1964.

Pulitzer Prizes

The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize twice in the "Public Service" category, in 1976 and 1989. No other Alaska newspaper has ever won a Pulitzer. The 1976 Pulitzer was for its series "Empire: The Alaska Teamsters Story," which disclosed the effect and influence of the Teamsters Union on the state's economy and politics. The Daily News was at that time the smallest daily newspaper ever to win the Public Service Pulitzer. The 1989 series was "A People in Peril," which documented the high degree of alcoholism, suicide and despair in the Alaska Native population.

Ownership change

The McClatchy Company has owned the "Daily News" since 1979, when it bought a controlling interest from Kay Fanning, who had been editor and publisher since the death of her husband, Larry Fanning, in 1971. Kay Fanning continued as the head of the paper until mid-1983.

The "Daily News" was the first of two newspapers that the then-122-year-old, California-based, McClatchy Company bought outside the state. (The Kennewick, Washington, "Tri-City Herald" was the other.) McClatchy would later grow to become a national newspaper company.

Criticism

In 1997, the weekly "Anchorage Press" newspaper ran a controversial article that alleged the "Daily News"' quality and newsroom morale had declined substantially since the McClatchy buyout and the "Daily News"' subsequent victory in its newspaper war with the "Anchorage Times", which went out of business in 1992. The "Press" article's title, "Paper in Peril," was a parody of the name of the Daily News' 1989 Pulitzer-winning series. While the "Press"' extensive interviews (mostly of unnamed sources) pointed out genuine problems and turmoil in the "Daily News"' newsroom, many believed the article unfairly maligned McClatchy in general and Daily News Editor in Chief Kent Pollock in particularFact|date=February 2007. Others believed the article unintentionally reflected at least as poorly on the rank-and-file reporters and editors as it did on managementFact|date=February 2007.

References

* [http://www.adn.com/help/history/ "Anchorage Daily News" history"] , from the newspaper's Web site.
* [http://www.mcclatchy.com/about/ "Overview of The McClatchy Company"] , from the company Web site.

External links

* [http://www.adn.com/ The online edition of the "Anchorage Daily News"]
* [http://www.anchoragepress.com/archives/document6a7c.html "Paper in Peril"] by David Holthouse, "Anchorage Press", May 15-21, 1997.
* [http://www.mcclatchy.com/146/story/447.html The McClatchy Company's subsidiary profile of "Anchorage Daily News"]