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The Griffin Daily News

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Griffin Daily News
TypeDaily newspaper
Owner(s)Paxton Media Group
Founded1871; 153 years ago (1871)
HeadquartersGriffin, Georgia
Circulation6,936
Websitegriffindailynews.com

The Griffin Daily News is a daily paper serving Griffin, Georgia and Spalding County. It is published in print and online.[1] with a circulation of about 7,000.[2]

History

[edit]
Douglas Glessner, founder and long-time editor of Griffin Daily News and Sun

The Griffin News was founded in 1871 as a daily publishing each weekday except Monday with a weekly on Friday.[3] Douglas Glessner, originally of Delaware, Ohio,[4][5] was both editor and publisher.[6] After a merger with The Sun in 1889 it was published under the name The Griffin Daily News and Sun until 1925 when it became the Griffin Daily News.[7]

Under Glessner's editorship the paper published racially inflammatory material and took a pro-lynching stance. According to historian Donald G. Matthews, it "pilloried" the Governor for calling for the prosecution of those responsible for lynching Dr. W. L. Ryder, a white man lynched in 1897.[8] The paper is seen by historian Edwin T. Arnold as a provocateur in events surrounding the all-black regiment the "Tenth Immunes", a Buffalo Soldier regiment, as they passed through Griffin, with much of that paper's coverage setting the national tone of coverage for those events.[9] When Sam Hose was lynched and burned alive in a nearby Coweta County, the paper ran the headline "The Hose Will Not Put Out This Fire".[10]

At the time of Glessner's sudden death in 1910 due to neprhitis, the paper was considered one of the "leading Democratic newspapers of middle Georgia."[11]

In 1924 the paper was purchased by Judge C. C. Givens to be run by two of his sons.[12] It was bought the subsequent year by Quimby Melton, a former manager for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain. It stayed in the Melton family until its sale to Thomson Newspapers in 1982.[13] In the Melton era, the paper's circulation rose from a readership of 6,000 in 1950 to 13,500 in 1980.[14] In 1997 it was bought by the Paxton Media Group.[15]

References

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  1. ^ "Subscription Services". Griffin Daily News. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  2. ^ "Griffin Daily News". Mondo Times.
  3. ^ Rowell, George Presbury (1887). Geo. P. Rowell and Co.'s American Newspaper Directory. Printers' Ink Publishing Company.
  4. ^ Mathews, Donald G. (2017-09-21). At the Altar of Lynching: Burning Sam Hose in the American South. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107182974.
  5. ^ "Douglas Glessner (1856-1910) - Find A Grave..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  6. ^ Rowell, George Presbury (1887). Geo. P. Rowell and Co.'s American Newspaper Directory. Printers' Ink Publishing Company.
  7. ^ "Griffin daily news". Chronicling America. Library of Congress. ISSN 0746-3324. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  8. ^ Mathews, Donald G. (2017-09-21). At the Altar of Lynching: Burning Sam Hose in the American South. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107182974.
  9. ^ Arnold, Edwin T. (2012-01-01). What Virtue There Is in Fire: Cultural Memory and the Lynching of Sam Hose. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820340647.
  10. ^ Arnold, Edwin T. (2012-01-01). What Virtue There Is in Fire: Cultural Memory and the Lynching of Sam Hose. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 9780820340647.
  11. ^ "Douglas Glessner Dead". Elba Clipper. 19 Jul 1910. Retrieved 2018-05-28.
  12. ^ "Judge Givens Buys Paper in Georgia". The Courier-Journal. Louisville, Kentucky. 1 May 1924.
  13. ^ Grimes, Millard B. (1985). The Last Linotype: The Story of Georgia and Its Newspapers Since World War II. Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780865541900.
  14. ^ Grimes, Millard B. (1985). The Last Linotype: The Story of Georgia and Its Newspapers Since World War II. Mercer University Press. ISBN 9780865541900.
  15. ^ Leaving Readers Behind. University of Arkansas Press. 2001. p. 55. ISBN 9781610752329. winchester news-gazette.