Gannett Newspaper Chain's Pre-21st Century Hidden History--Revisited (Part 1)

"...Since 2020, ownership of 1 out of every 6 newspapers in the USA has been monopolized by the Gannett/GateHouse newspaper chain media conglomerate..."

As an article by Robin Blinder that was posted on the Editor & Publisher magazine website on June 20, 2023 noted, last month the post-2019 Gannett-GateHouse newspaper chain media conglomerate “Gannett Co., Inc. filed a federal lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Google for `monopolization of advertising technology markets and deceptive commercial practices.’”

Yet the same article also quoted CUNY Grad School of Journalism’s “Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism” Director Jeff Jarvis as commenting that, while “there are legitimate questions to be addressed regarding Google's power in both sides of the advertising market,” it “is also ironic, for in New Jersey, where I live, Gannett is a would-be monopoly, buying up nine newspaper brands and promptly cutting back newsrooms, reducing the coverage and quality of journalism serving this state.”

And as an article by Clara Hendrickson that was posted on the Brookings.edu website on Nov. 18, 2019 observed, before Gannett merged with GateHouse Media in 2019, Gannett then monopolized ownership of 100 U.S. newspapers (including USA Today); and New Media Enterprises, the parent company of GateHouse Media, then monopolized ownership of 400 U.S. newspapers. So since 2020, ownership of 1 out of every 6 newspapers in the USA has been monopolized by the Gannett/GateHouse newspaper chain media conglomerate.

Historically Gannett was started in 1906 by a politically conservative, anti-liquor prohibitionist named Frank Gannett after Gannett purchased a daily newspaper in Elmira, New York for $3,000 [equal to around $100,000 in 2023] in cash and $17,000 [equal to over $576,000 in 2023] in borrowed money. Secretly financed by the International Paper and Power Company, a private power utility company in the first third of the 20th Century, Frank Gannett then purchased additional U.S. newspapers until he controlled a chain of newspapers that “were inflexibly conservative,” according to The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. Given the special influence that the International Paper & Power Company obtained by financing the growth of Frank Gannett’s media operation, it is not difficult to understand why “the Gannett papers were enthusiastic supporters of the power trust and scathing attackers of public ownership of generating plants,” according to The Media Monopoly book.

In the 1930s, the Gannett Company founder decided to form the anti-New Deal “Committee To Uphold Constitutional Government,” which successfully lobbied for the defeat of several proposed New Deal liberal reforms and attacked such New Deal liberal reforms as social security and increased taxation of the Ultra-Rich. According to the 1945 edition of Current Biography, Frank Gannett’s anti-New Deal lobbying in the 1930s “earned for him from New Deal Supporters the label of economic royalist.”

Yet prior to his death in 1957, Frank Gannett was also a Cornell University trustee, as well as a lord of the press. And Frank Gannett also used much of his Gannett newspaper chain wealth to finance an unsuccessful 1940 campaign for the U.S. presidency on an anti-liquor, Prohibitionist platform.

Consistent with the Gannett Company’s history of promoting political conservatism, it chose to feature then-U.S. Republican President Ronald Reagan at the Sept. 15, 1982 Washington, D.C. launching of its USA Today national newspaper. And in 1985, Gannett chose to let USA Today be an official sponsor of GOP President Reagan’s second-term inauguration festivities.

According to The Making of McPaper book, Reagan’s “inaugural planners were given $336,000 [equal to over $952,000] worth” of free advertising space in USA Today by the Gannett Company. The Jan. 22, 1985 issue of the Wall Street Journal also noted that one of the free USA Today ads printed to celebrate Reagan’s second term inauguration was a testimonial to Reagan from the former U.S. Senator and Republican Party Majority Leader Howard Baker—who had become a Gannett Company director in October, 1984.

In 1986, the Reagan Administration was able to grant a special favor to Gannett for Gannett Director Baker’s testimonial and for the media conglomerate’s providing of free ad space to inauguration planners. After Gannett purchased the Detroit News, Fortune magazine noted in its Sept. 11, 1986 issue that:

“In Detroit a lot hinges on whether the News gets approval from Attorney General Edwin Meese III to enter a joint-operating agreement with its competitor and fellow money loser, the Free Press owned by Knight-Ridder. If it does, Detroit should turn out to be a big winner for Gannett.”

Needless to say, the GOP Reagan Administration approved the joint-operating agreement between Gannett’s Detroit News and then-Knight-Ridder’s Detroit Free Press, despite local community opposition in Detroit to the joint-operating agreement.

By the early 1990s, the Gannett Company mass media conglomerate was, historically, the world’s largest newspaper publishing chain. At that time, Gannett controlled the USA Today national newspaper, 81 other daily newspapers in the United States and U.S. territories, and 35 other non-daily newspapers. The daily circulation of Gannett-owned newspapers around the United States then exceeded 6,000,000 in the early 1990s. Gannett also, historically, then operated 16 commercial radio stations and 10 commercial television broadcasting stations at that time. And during the first decade of the 21st-centurty, historically, Gannett still then-owned 23 commercial television broadcasting stations.

Among the mass media properties controlled by the Gannett Company in suburban New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and elsewhere, in addition to its USA Today national newspaper, in 1991 were:

New York: Yonkers Herald Statesman; White Plain Reporter; New Rochelle Standard-Star; Port Chester Daily Item; Mount Vernon Daily Argus; Mamaroneck Daily-Times; Peekskill Star; Ossining Citizen-Register; Tarrytown Daily News; West Nyack Rockland Journal News; Poughkeepsie Journal; Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin; Elmira Star Gazette; Ithaca Journal; Niagara Falls Niagara Gazette; Saratoga Springs Saratogian; Rochester Democrat and Chronicle Times-Union; and Utica Observer-Dispatch.

New Jersey: Camden Courier-Post; Bridgewater Courier –News; Mullville Daily; and Vineland Times-Journal.

Connecticut: Norwich Bulletin.

Washington, D.C.: WUSA-TV.

Arizona: Phoenix’s KPNX-TV; Tucson Citizen.

Arkansas: Little Rock Arkansas-Gazette.

California: Los Angeles’ KHS-Radio; San Diego’s KSDO-Radio; Marin County Marin Independent Journal; Palm Springs Desert Sun.

Colorado: Denver’s KUSA-TV.

Florida: Jacksonville’s WTLV-TV; Tampa’s WDAE and WUSA-Radio; Pensacola News-Journal; Fort Myers News-Press.

Georgia: Atlanta’s WXIA-TV.

Hawaii: Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Idaho: Boise Idaho Statesman.

Illinois: Chicago’s WGCI-Radio; Rockford Register-Star; Danville Commercial News.

Iowa: Des Moines Register; Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Kentucky: Louisville Courier-Journal.

Massachusetts: Boston’s WLVI-TV.

Michigan: Detroit News; Lansing State-Journal; Battle Creek Enquirer; Port Huron Times-Herald.

Minnesota: Minneapolis-St. Paul’s KARE-TV.

Mississippi: Jackson Clarion-Ledger and Daily News.

Missouri: St. Louis’s KUSA and KSD-Radio; Kansas City’s KCMO-Radio; and Springfield News-Leader.

Nevada: Reno Gazette-Journal.

New Mexico: Santa Fe New Mexican.

Ohio: Cincinnati Enquirer.

Oklahoma: Oklahoma City’s KOCO-TV.

South Dakota: Sioux Falls Argus-Leader.

Tennessee: Nashville Tennessean.

Texas: Austin’s KVUE-TV; Houston’s KKBQ Radio; and El Paso Times.

Vermont: Burlington Free Press.

Wisconsin: Green Bay Press-Gazette.

Virgin Islands: Virgin Island Daily News. and

Guam: Pacific Daily News.

Then in 1995, Gannett purchased the Multimedia, Inc. media corporation and temporarily added 10 additional daily newspapers to its chain of newspapers, 5 additional television stations, and two additional radio stations. But by 1998, the Gannett media conglomerate had decided to reduce its involvement in radio broadcasting and had sold off the 16 radio stations it had owned in 1991 and the two additional radio stations it had acquired from Multimedia, Inc. in 1995. (end of part 1)