Portland Press Herald

The Portland Daily Press was founded in June 1862 by J. T. Gilman, Joseph B. Hall, and Newell A. Foster as a new Republican paper.[3] Its first issue, published June 23, 1862, announced strong support for Abraham Lincoln and condemned slavery as "the foulest blot upon our national character."[1] The paper quickly gained the largest circulation in Portland, and was one of five daily newspapers in the city to survive to the 20th century.[1] In 1904 the paper was bought by a syndicate of Maine Republicans, including Henry B. Cleaves, and gubernatorial candidate Joseph Homan Manley, who the paper had previously opposed.[4]

It was merged with the Portland Herald in 1921 to form the Portland Press Herald[5] in a sale of the Press from then U.S. Senator Frederick Hale to Guy P. Gannett,[6][7] who had bought the Herald earlier the same year.[1] The first edition of the Portland Press Herald was published in November 21, 1921.[1] The Press Herald's circulation skyrocketed in the first year of Gannett's ownership, when the paper sold for 2 cents; circulation went from a little over 18,000 to nearly 29,000.[1] Under Gannett's ownership, the traditionally pro-Republican newspaper adopted a balanced editorial approach; during the 1922 gubernatorial campaign, the newspaper published Democratic candidate William Robinson Pattangall's criticism of the Republican incumbent, Governor Percival Baxter. In a letter to readers, Gannett wrote, "The American people think for themselves. They want and should be given the news and all the news fully and uncolored by any personal or political consideration."[1]

In the 1920s, Gannett's media empire in Maine grew: he purchased the Portland Evening Express and Daily Advertiser in 1925 (whose name he shortened to Evening Express) and by 1929 also bought Augusta's Kennebec Journal and Waterville's Central Maine Morning Sentinel.[1]

In 1923, Gannett built a new building to house all of the paper's operations on 390 Congress Street across from Portland City Hall. In 2010, the newspaper vacated that building and moved its news staff to nearby One City Center.[8] In 2015, a hotel (the Press Hotel) opened in the newspaper's former headquarters.[9] The newspaper's printing and distribution functions are located in South Portland.[8]

A paid advertisement in the newspaper's February 3, 2007 "religion and values" section, placed by the First Baptist Church of South Portland, listed the sermon as "The Only Way to Destroy the Jewish Race"; this caused outrage in Greater Portland's Jewish community[10] and led to an apology by the minister of that church.[11] Two weeks later, an ad for PeoplesChoice Credit Union ran, depicting a "Fee Bandit" character that used stock photography of a Hasidic Jew to represent the character rather than the Old West banker intended for the visual representation.[12] This incident prompted investigations by the Anti-Defamation League; Steven Wessler, director of the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence and the person in charge of dealing with hate crimes in the state; and the Jewish Community Alliance. The newspaper's management, as well as the credit union, later apologized for the advertisements; the newspaper said it would scrutinize ad content better in the future.[11][13][14]

On March 17, 2008, the Press Herald converted from its traditional multi-section format to two sections. A brief editorial highlighted advertising concerns and said the other sections could be found online. The next day, The Seattle Times Company, its owner at the time, announced that it was putting the Press Herald and its other Maine newspaper properties up for sale.[15] The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram also had three rounds of job cuts in 2008; in the third round of cuts, the newspapers' owner eliminated 36 jobs and closed the news bureaus in Augusta, Biddeford, Bath, and Washington, D.C., in response to declining newspaper ad revenue.[16]

After more than a year on the market, on June 15, 2009, the papers were sold to MaineToday Media, Inc., headed by Maine native Richard L. Connor, publisher of Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with financing from HM Capital Partners and Citizens Bank.[17] MaineToday also owned a variety of Maine press properties, including the Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel, and Bath's Coastal Journal, as well as mainetoday.com.[18] Although MaineToday originally announced a plan to move the paper's offices out of downtown into the South Portland printing plant,[19] it was later reported that the company's headquarters would move to One City Center in downtown Portland.[20] As part of the sale, Portland Newspaper Guild members took a 10% pay cut in exchange for 15% ownership in MaineToday Media. More than 30 non-union jobs were eliminated.[21]

Maine Values LLC, a company owned by wealthy businessman and philanthropist S. Donald Sussman, made a $3–4 million investment in MaineToday Media in February 2012, acquiring a 5% equity stake in the company and a seat on its board.[18] The next month, Maine Values boosted its ownership stake in MaineToday to 75%.[22] Sussman, who lives in North Haven, Maine, therefore held a majority stake in the newspapers.[1] In 2015, MaineToday Media was sold to Reade Brower, owner of a number of midcoast Maine newspapers and a printing operation in Brunswick, Maine.[23] Over a decade, Browder has consolidated six of Maine's seven daily newspapers, as well as 21 weekly newspapers, under his ownership.[24]

Notable alumni of the paper include May Craig, who was Washington correspondent from 1935 to 1965;[25] sportswriter Steve Buckley, who later joined the Boston Herald;[26] Steve Riley, who served as managing editor of the Press Herald before leaving in the mid-1980s to become editor of the Central Maine Morning Sentinel;[27] investigative journalist and book author Colin Woodard, who was named Maine Journalist of the Year in 2015;[28] vegan food columnist Avery Yale Kamila,[29] and opinion columnist Bill Nemitz.[30]

In 2006, the paper received a Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Award for General Excellence, Class III.[31]

In 2012, Maine Sunday Telegram reporter Colin Woodard received a George Polk Award in the "Education Reporting" category "for detailing how online education companies steered development of Maine’s digital education policies."[32]

In 2016, Colin Woodard of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for his "compelling account of dramatic ecological changes occurring in the warming ocean region from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod."[33]

In 2016, Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram reporters Whit Richardson and Steve Mistler received a Gerald Loeb Award for their 2015 series "Payday at the Mill" in the "Local" category.[34] The series detailed a lack of accountability in the Maine New Markets Capital Investment program, a state tax-incentive program.[35][36]

The newspaper's predecessor, the Portland Daily Press, was formed as a pro-Republican newspaper in an era when most American newspapers had strong political allegiances.[1] In the 1920s, under Guy P. Gannett's leadership, the newspaper adopted a more balanced editorial approach, and today the news and opinion sections of the paper are separate.[1]

In 1929 and 1930, the Portland Press Herald and the Portland Evening News "waged an editorial war" about the Kellogg–Briand Pact and the 1930 London Conference on naval arms limitations: the Evening News took a pacifist view, arguing in favor of the Pact; the Press Herald took the opposite view, calling the Pact "a delusion and a dream."[37] This dispute illustrated a political chasm within the Maine Republican Party at the time between "Old Guard regulars" and pacifists.[37]

Later in the 20th century, the Press Herald was regarded as having a more liberal and pro-Democratic editorial stance than the Bangor Daily News, which leaned toward conservatism and Republicans.[38] Over its history, however, the Press Herald "has covered and endorsed candidates of various political persuasions, including independents Angus King, who was elected governor in 1994 and 1998, and Eliot Cutler, who came in second in the 2010 gubernatorial campaign."[1] The Press Herald endorsed conservative Republican candidates (Dean Scontras and Jason Levesque) in both of Maine's congressional districts in 2010.[39] They were defeated by the Democratic incumbents, Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud.[40] In the 2016 presidential election, the paper's editorial board endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.[41] The paper endorsed an override of Governor Paul LePage's veto of L.D. 1504, a pro-solar energy bill.[42]

Content from the Portland Press Herald appears on its website pressherald.com. The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram acquired the domain name Portland.com in 1996 for free, using it as the Web address for the papers; Portland.com was sold to a marketing firm and became a visitor's guide for the city of Portland, Oregon, in 2004.[43]

• Official website
• MaineToday.com
• Today's Portland Press Herald front page at the Newseum website