TheAkron Beacon Journal is a morningnewspaper inAkron, Ohio, United States. Owned byGannett, it is the sole daily newspaper in Akron and is distributed throughoutNortheast Ohio. The paper's coverage focuses on local news. The Beacon Journal has won fourPulitzer Prizes: in 1968, 1971, 1987 and 1994.[2]
The paper was founded with the 1897 merger of theSummit Beacon, first published in 1839, and theAkron Evening Journal, founded in 1896.[2] In 1903, theBeacon Journal was purchased byCharles Landon Knight. His sonJohn S. Knight inherited the paper, in 1933, on Charles' death. TheBeacon Journal under Knight was the original and flagship newspaper of Knight Newspaper Company, later calledKnight Ridder.
The McClatchy Company bought Knight Ridder in June 2006 with intentions of selling 12 Knight Ridder newspapers. On August 2, 2006, McClatchy sold theBeacon Journal toBlack Press. In 2018,GateHouse Media bought the newspaper.[3]
On November 11, 2013, theAkron Beacon Journal printed its last paper in-house. It subsequently used the presses atThe Repository in Canton, Ohio,[4] also owned by GateHouse. As of March 2019[update] it was using the presses atThe Plain Dealer in Cleveland.[5]
Herman Fetzer: better known as "Jake Falstaff" to the Akron Beacon Journal, Akron Times andCleveland Press readers, worked as suburban reporter for the Akron Times, where in 1920 he began his columnPippins and Cheese, taking its title and his pen name fromWilliam Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. While working at the Akron Beacon Journal, his desk sat adjacent to that of writerJosephine Van De Grift, columnist ofDemi-Tasse and Mrs. Grundy..[6]
