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 The July 27, 2009 front page of The Monterey County Herald | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Digital First Media |
| Founder | Allen Griffin |
| Editor | David Kellogg |
| Founded | 1922 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Monterey,California |
| Circulation | 23,862 Daily 58,001 Sunday (as of March 2013)[1] |
| Sister newspapers | Santa Cruz Sentinel |
| Website | montereyherald |
The Monterey County Herald, sometimes referred to as theMonterey Herald, is a dailynewspaper published inMonterey, California that servesMonterey County. It is owned byMedia News Group.
In June 1922,The Monterey County Herald was first published.[2][3] It was founded by Colonel R. Allen Griffin, a highly decorated infantry captain who fought inFrance duringWorld War II.[4] He boughtMonterey Cypress American and consolidated it with his paper,[5] later renamedThe Monterey Peninsula Herald.[4] Allen was an alumnus ofStanford University who returned to the military duringWorld War II. He served as deputy chief of the ECA China Mission and set up the first United States operation onFormosa after the collapse ofFree China.[6]
In 1949,Edward Kennedy was hired as theHerald's editor-in-chief. Kennedy, as anAssociated Press correspondent, had won celebrity, and considerable criticism, in the closing days ofWorld War II by announcingGermany's surrender one day before that announcement was supposed to have been made.[7] A small monument in Monterey memorializes him for having given the world an extra day of peace.[8][9] He died in 1963 after a car hit him[10]
In 1967, theHerald was acquired byBlade Communications, owner of theToledo Blade. At that time the paper had a circulation of 30,000.[4] Allen retired three years later.[6] In 1992, the paper was acquired by theE.W. Scripps Company in exchange for thePittsburgh Press, which Blade merged into its ownPittsburgh Post-Gazette.[11][12] Scripps traded the paper, along withThe San Luis Obispo Tribune, toKnight Ridder in 1997, in exchange for theBoulder Daily Camera.[13][14] Following the deal, Knight Ridder fired allHerald employees and required those who wanted their jobs back to reapply. The paper's union members protested in response.[15][16]
In 2006, theMcClatchy Company purchased Knight Ridder in a deal valued at $4.5 billion. The deal was contingent on McClatchy selling off 12 of the 32 newspapers it had just purchased, includingThe Monterey County Herald.[17]MediaNews Group, headed byWilliam Dean Singleton, purchased four of the "orphan 12", including theHerald, theContra Costa Times andSan Jose Mercury News, for $1 billion.[17]
In December 2013, MediaNews Group and21st Century Media merged to create a new company operating under the name of its parent company,Digital First Media.[18] In the year to come, the paper underwent a "reorganization plan" which included a redesign of both the newspaper and website, the move of newspaper production out-of-area, as well as a change in editor.[19]