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The News & Observer

The News & Observer
Newsobserverjune162009.png
The June 16, 2009, front page of
The News & Observer
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s) The McClatchy Company
Publisher Orage Quarles III
Editor John Drescher
News editor Linda Williams
Sports editor Gary Schwab
Founded 1865 (as The Sentinel)
Headquarters Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
Circulation 121,441 daily
171,406 Sunday
(October 2014)
Website www.newsobserver.com

The News & Observer is an American regional daily newspaper that serves the greater Triangle area based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The paper is the second largest in the state after The Charlotte Observer. The paper has also been awarded three Pulitzer Prizes; the most recent of which was in 1996 for a series on the health and environmental impact of North Carolina's booming hogging industry. The paper was also one of the first in the world to launch an online version of the publication Nando.net in 1994.

The publisher is Orage Quarles, who was named the nation's outstanding publisher by Editor and Publisher magazine in 2002. In 2007, John Drescher was named executive editor, succeeding Melanie Sill.

The News & Observer traces its roots to The Sentinel Raleigh’s first newspaper, which was founded by the Rev. William E. Pell in 1865 to help expose the corruption of state politics during the reconstruction era. The paper struggled to stay relevant and make money leading to a new owner to take over the paper in 1868. With the new owner The Sentinel began to cover the Democrats push to retake the North Carolina Legislature; along with the impeachment of Gov. William W. Holden in 1871.

The Sentinel went bankrupt a little over ten years after the paper was first founded. The owners of the newly founded Raleigh Observer Peter M. Hale and William L. Saunders bought the now bankrupt paper ending its publication and focusing on the Raleigh Observer. After about ten years the paper ran out of money so the two owners sold to the owner of the Raleigh News, Samuel A. Ashe.

Ashe combined the two papers under the new banner The News & Observer in September 1880 making it the sole daily paper in Raleigh. Asher ran the company personally until 1894 focusing on politics and the Democratic party. Ashe used connections within the Democratic Party to get an upper leg on upcoming stories. This model worked well for the paper until Ashe lost favor in the Democratic caucus leading the paper to fall on hard financial times for the fourth time in its history.


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