TheShreveport Journal was an American newspaper originally published by H. P. Benton inShreveport andBossier City in northwesternLouisiana.[1] In operation from at least 1897, it ceased publication in 1991.
The nameThe Journal was adopted on February 17, 1897. Previously the publication had been known for several years asThe Judge. William E. Hamilton, another of several early owners, obtained the newspaper about 1900 and held it until 1911, when it was acquired by the Journal Publishing Company, with A. J. Frantz as the president and Douglas F. Attaway Sr. as secretary. By 1918, Attaway had acquired controlling interest; in 1925, he became the president and publisher. Upon the senior Attaway's death in 1957, his son, Douglas F. Attaway Jr., succeeded his father as both the president and publisher.[2] Attaway graduated with a journalism degree from theUniversity of Missouri inColumbia. From 1966 to 1979, he was also the chairman of the board ofKSLA-TV, theCBS affiliate established in 1954 and the first television outlet in Shreveport. Attaway sold KSLA toViacom. He was also a former chairman of the board of Newspaper Production Company and the Attaway Newspaper Group, Inc.[3]
In 1972, Attaway wrote an article on a total eclipse, the phenomenon in which the moon totally blocks the rays of the sun, which occurred on July 10 of that year. Attaway and his long-term photo editor, Jack Barham, journeyed to New York City to observe the two-minute eclipse, having found their desirable spot of view under theVerrazzano–Narrows Bridge.[4]
In 1974, Attaway recruited Stanley R. Tiner from the rivalShreveport Times to become the editor ofThe Journal. AWebster Parish native reared in Shreveport, Tiner graduated with a journalism degree fromLouisiana Tech University. In 1976, Attaway soldThe Journal to the Shreveport industrialist and philanthropist Charles T. Beaird, who had served in the late 1950s as aRepublican for one term on the formerCaddo ParishPolice Jury. Tiner and Beaird moved the editorial position ofThe Journal to the political left, whereas it had been clearlyconservative and earliersegregationist under Attaway and a previous editor, George Shannon.[5]
The Times andThe Journal once shared a building at 222 Lake Street, although they were separately owned and editorially independent.The Times remains at the Lake Street location, but has moved operations to an adjacent building in recent years.[citation needed]
On January 29, 1991, Beaird announced thatThe Journal would terminate its daily operations two months later on March 30. The publication had steadily lost circulation and hence critical advertising revenues during the preceding decade. Readership dropped from a peak of nearly 40,000 to barely 16,000. "There just comes a time when it becomes uneconomical to go on. It was a very tough, sad decision," Beaird said.[6]
ThoughThe Journal had closed as a daily paper in 1991, Beaird contracted an agreement withThe Times to carry on itsop-ed page called "Journal Page", which permitted continuing editorial comment approved by Beaird and managed by his editor, Jim Montgomery (1945–2013), also a native of Webster Parish. The "Journal Page" finally ended its run on December 31, 1999.[2]
Under Beaird,The Journal won several important prizes, including theRobert F. Kennedy Award for Coverage of the Disadvantaged by theNational Conference of Christians and Jews, the Mass Media Gold Medallion for stories on African American history, and theScripps-Howard National Journalism Awards for Editorial Writing.[6] "Journal Page" was a finalist in 1994 for aPulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for a series on decriminalization of narcotics.[7] Years later in 2006, Stanley Tiner's staff atThe Sun Herald inBiloxi-Gulfport,Mississippi, won aPulitzer Prize for Public Service for its reporting ofHurricane Katrina the previous year.[8]
In addition to the aforementioned George Shannon, Stanley Tiner, and Jack Barham, other notableJournal staffers include:
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