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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
The State's first daily paper was the Newark Daily Advertiser, founded
in 1832 as a daily edition of the Sentinel of Freedom. The Advertiser,
which ultimately became the present Star-Eagle, backed the Whigs and
the candidacy of Henry Clay. The Advertiser remained alone in the field
for more than a decade before its success inspired in rapid succession
papers in Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson. Most of these, however,
were ephemeral. The Trenton State Gazette, an old post-Revolutionary
weekly that was converted into a daily in 1847, is the only survivor.
The State Gazette inaugurated the first telegraphic news service in New
Jersey. On January 13, 1847, the publishers announced with "the greatest
satisfaction" that, "simultaneously with the morning daily papers of
Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York," they were publishing that day "the proceedings of Congress yesterday, transmitted by
the Magnetic Telegraph . . . a feat never before accomplished or thought
of in New Jersey." The Newark Advertiser shortly followed suit. The
old Associated Press -- founded in 1848 and dissolved in 1899 -- was used
by Thomas T. Kinney, the Advertiser's editor and publisher, as early as
1851.
At the end of the Civil War the manufacture of newsprint from wood
pulp increased the possibilities of profitable publishing. The Jersey Journal of Jersey City appeared in 1867, and in the next 12 years 10 of the
existing daily papers began publication. In the same period the Newark
Sunday Call (1872) was established. Though it issues no daily edition,
it has become the most important Sunday paper in the State. Its policy
of treating New Jersey as one large community in which weddings and
politics vie for the reader's interest has made it as much a part of Sunday morning in New Jersey as toast and coffee. The Call has been particularly energetic in vivifying the history and folklore of the State.
Under the management of the Kinneys, father and son, the Newark
Advertiser became the best-equipped paper in New Jersey. They introduced steam power, cylinder presses, and other advanced mechanical equipment. A worthy contemporary until its cessation in 1894 was the Newark
Evening Journal, whose militant editor, William Fuller, opposed the Civil
War and the draft, and urged fair treatment of the defeated South.
After Richard Watson Gilder had lent a distinctive literary tone to the
Advertiser, Wallace Scudder in 1883 established the Newark Evening
News which within two decades ranked with such vigorous publications
as the Springfield Republican and the Hartford Courant. Comprehensive
presentation of New Jersey and a consistently progressive technical policy
make it one of the Nation's foremost six-day newspapers. Like the Call on
Sundays, the News on weekdays throws the searchlight on a wide arc of
its own dooryard. Its earliest editions, which often resemble abridgements
of several country weeklies, justify its claim to the title, "New Jersey's
Great Home Newspaper." In April 1938 the News received the Francis
Wayland Ayer Cup, offered annually by N. W. Ayer & Son, Inc., to the
daily newspaper chosen as the most outstanding for typographical excellence.
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