 December 18, 2011 cover of the Sunday Eagle-Tribune | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. |
| Publisher | Jim Falzone |
| Editor | Tracey Dee Rauh |
| Founded | 1868, asLawrence Daily Eagle |
| Headquarters | 100 Turnpike Street, North Andover, Massachusetts 01845, United States |
| Circulation | 35,397 daily 36,904 Sundays (as of 2012)[1] |
| ISSN | 1084-4708 |
| Website | eagletribune |
The Eagle-Tribune (andSunday Eagle-Tribune) is a morningdaily newspaper covering theMerrimack Valley andEssex County, Massachusetts, and southernNew Hampshire. It is the largest-circulation daily newspaper owned byCommunity Newspaper Holdings Inc., and the lead property in a regional chain of four dailies and severalweekly newspapers in Essex County and southern New Hampshire.
AlthoughThe Eagle-Tribune is historically tied toLawrence, Massachusetts, the largest city in its circulation area, it has been based since the 1960s in suburbanNorth Andover, Massachusetts, and has not included "Lawrence" in its nameplate since the late 1980s.[2]
Despite being a small-town publication,The Eagle-Tribune has run some extremely notable stories publicizing scandals inside and outside politics. During the late 1980s,The Eagle-Tribune ran nearly 200 articles onMichael Dukakis and the Massachusetts prisonfurlough program, with a special focus onWillie Horton. The series was widely credited for ending furlough for first-degree murderers in Massachusetts, and was awarded aPulitzer Prize.[3] During the 1990s,The Eagle Tribune ran a series of articles titledCracking the Ice: Intrigue and Conflict in the World of Big-Time Hockey, interviewing nearly 400 current and former players and officials, uncovering corruption inside theNHL, itsplayers' association, andHockey Canada, which would lead to the conviction, disbarment, and resignation from theHockey Hall of Fame of former NHLPA presidentAlan Eagleson. The newspaper's sports editor, Russ Conway, who led the investigation, was a nominated finalist for the1992 Pulitzer Prize in Beat Reporting for his work and earned theElmer Ferguson Memorial Award in 1999.[4][5] The newspaper’s staff was also a nominated finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting in 1996, for coverage of theMalden Mills fire and its impact on the community.[6] The paper won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its coverage of the drowning deaths of fourLawrence boys in theMerrimack River.[7]
In the late 1980s through the 1990s,The Eagle-Tribune was consistently named New England Newspaper of the Year and earned a reputation for quality journalism.[8]
Before its 2005 sale to CNHI,The Eagle-Tribune and its predecessors had been owned by the Rogers family for more than 100 years, dating back to the purchase of theLawrence Daily Eagle (founded as a morning paper in 1868) andEvening Tribune (founded in Lawrence in 1890) byEagle reporter Alexander H. Rogers in 1898.[9]
Rogers passed the role of publisher to his son, Irving E. Rogers Sr., in 1942; he passed it along to his son, Irving Jr., 40 years later.[8] After his death in 1998, the fourth and last generation of Rogers owners took over, in the person of Irving E. "Chip" Rogers III.
During the first Irving Rogers' tenure, theLawrence Eagle-Tribune was founded in 1959 by finally merging the company's two newspapers into one afternoon paper. Irving Rogers Sr. was also the publisher who moved the company to new headquarters in North Andover.[9]
During Rogers family ownership, the paper dropped "Lawrence" from its nameplate.
Former Lawrence Mayor John J. Buckley, in 1990, laudedThe Eagle-Tribune for helping the city bounce back from the closure of several mills in the 1950s. He said the paper championed economic redevelopment in its editorials and news articles, and persuaded companies such asAvco,Honeywell andRaytheon to open plants in Lawrence.[10]
In 2005, the Rogers family, which had owned The Eagle-Tribune for generations, sold the newspaper and its subsidiaries—including three otherMassachusetts dailies and several weeklies—toCommunity Newspaper Holdings, Inc. of Alabama, for an undisclosed amount of money. Rogers initially stayed on as publisher, but was replaced as publisher later that year.[11]
The paper went through a minor labor dispute in January 2006, after several staff members attempted to start aunion. As part of a move to beef upThe Eagle-Tribune's presence inNew Hampshire, the paper reassigned several staff members to a satellite bureau inDerry, New Hampshire – days after a union vote. Some of the workers said they were being punished for being on a union organizing committee; they said other members of the committee were switched to less desirable night beats. Spokesmen for CNHI said the moves were unrelated to the union vote, which failed.[12]
March 2006 brought the daily paper's conversion from an afternoon to a morning newspaper.
As part ofThe Eagle-Tribune's push into the suburbs—a move which has left some bitterness in the city[2] – the paper has acquired severalweekly newspapers within and bordering its coverage area.
Weeklies published within the paper's circulation area byEagle-Tribune Publishing Company include theAndover Townsman, circulating 6,900 copies per week inAndover; theHaverhill Gazette, 6,400 inHaverhill; andTown Crossings, 14,700 inBoxford andNorth Andover.[13]
BorderingThe Eagle-Tribune's circulation area in southernNew Hampshire, the company publishes theCarriage Towne News inExeter and nine other towns; and the weeklyDerry News inDerry and five other towns.[13]
In 2002, the paper made its largest acquisition, scooping up some of its chief daily competitors for US$64 million. The purchase of the Essex County Newspapers chain fromOttaway Community Newspapers, a division ofDow Jones & Company, brought three neighboring afternoon dailies into the fold: theGloucester Daily Times,The Daily News of Newburyport andThe Salem Evening News.Eagle-Tribune executives touted the creation of a regional news organization; they also laid off some 45 staffers at the Essex County papers, including some editors of the Newburyport and Salem papers.[14]
Since then, the four dailies and the weeklies have made several cost-saving consolidations, cutting down to one printing facility and combining advertising staffs. In 2005, the company employed 700 and reached 341,000 readers in 55 communities, according to a spokesman.[2] In September 2008, the company laid off 52 employees in a cost-cutting move.
With its acquisition of the Eagle-Tribune, CNHI also assumed a 49 percent stake in Costa-Eagle Radio Ventures Ltd. and its three radio stations, WCCM,WCEC (formerlyWHAV) andWNNW. Continuing its deemphasis of its home town, the company moved WCCM, a long-time Lawrence radio station to a smaller signal in Haverhill and then to its smallest signal inSalem, New Hampshire. The former owners of the Eagle-Tribune created Cambridge Acquisitions, Inc. during the fall of 1994 to hold the minority stake, according to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, Corporations Division.[15] In April 2017, theWCCM call letters were moved to a station in Methuen, with the Salem station becomingWMVX.
