The Wichita Eagle is a daily newspaper published in Wichita, Kansas, United States. It is owned by The McClatchy Company and is the largest newspaper in Wichita and the surrounding area.[2]
 The July 27, 2005 front page of The Wichita Eagle | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | The McClatchy Company |
| Publisher | Roy Heatherly |
| Editor | Sherry Chisenhall |
| Founded | 1872 |
| Headquarters | 825 East Douglas Avenue Wichita, KS 67202 United States |
| Circulation | 90,648 Daily 149,230 Sunday [1] |
| Website | kansas.com |
History
Origins
In 1870, The Vedette was the first newspaper established in Wichita by Fred A. Sowers[3] and W. B. Hutchinson. It operated briefly.[4][5]
In April 1872, The Wichita Eagle was founded and edited by Marshall M. Murdock,[6][7] and it became a daily paper in May 1884.[4] His son, Victor Murdock,[8] was a reporter for the paper during his teens, the managing editor from 1894 to 1903, an editor from the mid-1920s until his death in 1945.
In October 1872, The Wichita Daily Beacon was founded by Fred A. Sowers and another man.[4][5] It published daily for two months, then weekly until 1884 when it went back to daily. In 1907, Henry Allen[9] purchased the Beacon and was publisher for many years.[10]
Mergers
The Eagle and Beacon competed for 88 years, then in 1960 the Eagle purchased the Beacon. Both newspapers continued to be published, the Eagle in the morning, the Beacon in the evening, the Eagle and Beacon on Sunday.[5]
In 1973, the Murdock family sold the paper to Ridder Publications. Ridder and Knight Newspapers merged in 1974 to form Knight Ridder, which combined the two newspapers into The Wichita Eagle-Beacon in 1980.[5]
In 1989, the Beacon name was dropped, and the newspaper became The Wichita Eagle.[5]
In 2006, the Eagle became part of The McClatchy Company when McClatchy bought Knight Ridder.[5]
Internet
On November 18, 1996, the Eagle launched its first website, Wichita Online, at wichitaeagle.com. On November 11, 2007, its domain was changed to kansas.com.[5]
Move
In spring 2016, McClatchy Company announced that it would transfer printing of the Eagle from Wichita to its Kansas City Star printing line in Kansas City, Missouri, which already prints other newspapers such as Lawrence Journal-World and Topeka Capital-Journal. The move eliminated 27 full-time and 47 part-time jobs. The building will be sold and the editing staff will move to a smaller location in downtown Wichita.[11][12] In fall 2016, Cargill announced that it would move it's "Protein Group" headquarters from downtown Wichita into a new $60 Million building on the site of the former Eagle building at 825 East Douglas Avenue in old town.[13][14]
As of September 2016, the editing staff was still located at 825 East Douglas Avenue, but no announcement of when or where they will move, other than the goal of being in downtown Wichita area.
Civic journalism
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.[citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
References
- ^ The Wichita Eagle - Information.
- ^ The Wichita Eagle website.
- ^ Frederick Augustus Sowers at Find a Grave
- ^ a b c Wichita : Illustrated History 1868 to 1880; Eunice S. Chapter; 52 pages; 1914.
- ^ a b c d e f g History of The Wichita Eagle; The Wichita Eagle; May 29, 2016.
- ^ Col Marshall Marcellus "Marsh" Murdock at Find a Grave
- ^ Marshall M. Murdock; Kansas Press Association.
- ^ Victor Murdock at Find a Grave
- ^ Henry Justin Allen at Find a Grave
- ^ Henry J. Allen; Kansas Press Association.
- ^ Eagle to transfer printing to Kansas City Star; The Wichita Eagle; March 14, 2016.
- ^ Wichita Eagle to transfer printing to Kansas City Star; Lawrence Journal-World; March 15, 2016.
- ^ Cargill selects site for new Wichita headquarters for it's Protein Group; The Wichita Eagle; September 30, 2016.
- ^ Cargill unveils plans for $60 million Protein Group headquarters; Wichita Business Journal; December 1, 2016.
- Michael Hoyt, (July, 1992) "The Wichita Experiment", (Columbia Journalism Review)
- The McClatchy Company, Newspaper Profiles: The Wichita Eagle, accessed October 17, 2006.
Further reading
- History of Wichita and Sedgwick County Kansas : Past and present, including an account of the cities, towns, and villages of the county (two volumes); O.H. Bentley; 454 and 479 pages; 1910. Online Book Vol 1, Online Book Vol 2.
- Wichita: Illustrated History 1868 to 1880; Eunice S. Chapter; 52 pages; 1914. Online Book.
- Wichita: The Early Years, 1865-80; H. Craig Miner; 201 page; 1982; ISBN 0-8032-3077-X.
- Knightfall: Knight Ridder and How the Erosion of Newspaper Journalism is Putting Democracy at Risk; Davis Merritt; 242 pages; 2005; ISBN 0-8144-0854-0.