TheEast Bay Times is a dailybroadsheetnewspaper based inWalnut Creek, California, United States, owned by theBay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary ofMedia News Group, that servesContra Costa andAlameda counties, in theEast Bay region of theSan Francisco Bay Area. It was founded as theContra Costa Times, and took its current name in 2016 when it was merged with other sister papers in the East Bay. Its oldest merged title is theOakland Tribune founded in 1874.
 Front page of theEast Bay Times | |
| Type | Dailynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner(s) | Bay Area News Group (Digital First Media) |
| Publisher | Sharon Ryan |
| Editor | Frank Pine |
| Founded | 1947; 78 years ago (1947) |
| Headquarters | 2121 N. California Blvd, Suite 290,Walnut Creek, California 94596 U.S. |
| Circulation | 55,787 Daily 100,200 Sunday (as of 2022)[1] |
| ISSN | 2473-0351 |
| Website | eastbaytimes |
History
editThe originalContra Costa Times was founded byDean Lesher in 1947, and served centralContra Costa County, especially Walnut Creek. However, Lesher began expanding by purchasing weekly newspapers in neighboring communities, as well as two eastern Contra Costa daily papers, theAntioch Ledger and thePittsburg Post-Dispatch. Originally the weekly newspapers were free for shoppers, but Lesher gradually converted the papers to "controlled circulation" in 1962, an aggressive and expensive new strategy that called for free delivery of a copy to every household while asking readers to voluntarily buy subscriptions. Ultimately, the weeklies were converted into zoned daily editions called theWest County Times, servingRichmond,El Cerrito, and western Contra Costa County; theSan Ramon Valley Times, serving the suburbs of theSan Ramon Valley south of Walnut Creek; and theValley Times servingLivermore and the suburbs of eastern Alameda County. The two East Contra Costa dailies were merged into a single edition, theLedger-Dispatch, which gradually faded away, first being reduced to a thrice-weekly insert in theContra Costa Times, then being replaced outright by theEast County Times.
Corporate ownership
editLesher died May 13, 1993. On August 29, 1995, his widow Margaret sold the privately held company to theKnight Ridder newspaper chain for $360 million.[2] Knight Ridder was later purchased by theSacramento-basedMcClatchy Company in June 2006 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, including theContra Costa Times.
On April 26, 2006, it was announced that MediaNews Group (now Digital First Media), then headed byWilliam Dean Singleton, would purchase four of the "orphan 12", including theContra Costa Times andSan Jose Mercury News, for $1 billion. Although that transaction was completed on August 2, 2006, a lawsuit claiming antitrust violations by MediaNews and theHearst Corporation had also been filed in July 2006. The suit, which sought to undo the purchase of the four newspapers, was scheduled to go to trial on April 30, 2007. While extending until that date a preliminary injunction preventing collaboration of local distribution and national advertising sales by the two media conglomerates, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston on December 19, 2006, expressed doubt over the legality of the purchase.[3] On April 25, 2007, days before the trial was scheduled to begin, the parties reached a settlement in which MediaNews Group preserved its acquisitions.[4]
As part of a reorganization announced in 2011, theContra Costa Times was slated to be merged with theEast County Times, San Ramon Valley Times, Tri-Valley Herald andSan Joaquin Herald. However, BANG announced on October 27, 2011, that it would retain theContra Costa Times andEast County Timesmastheads and only combine theTri-Valley Herald,San Joaquin Herald, andSan Ramon Valley Times under a newTri-Valley Times masthead, reducing the number of mastheads from five to three.[5]
On April 5, 2016, the three remainingTimes editions were merged along with the company's other newspaper in the East Bay, theOakland Tribune, which it had owned since 1992. The combined paper was named theEast Bay Times.[6][7]
In 2017, the staff of theEast Bay Times was awarded thePulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting, for "relentless coverage of theGhost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people at a warehouse party, and for reporting after the tragedy that exposed the city's failure to take actions that might have prevented it".[8]
Community weeklies
editTheEast Bay Times publishes the following community weeklies:[9]
- Alameda Journal
- Berkeley Voice
- The Journal (El Cerrito)
- The Montclarion
- The Piedmonter
- Oakland Tribune
- Daily Review
- The Argus
- Concord Transcript
- Walnut Creek Journal
- East County News
References
edit- ^"Bay Area News Group Market Book"(PDF).Dropbox. RetrievedApril 21, 2023.
- ^Carl T. Hall; Erin Hallissy (August 29, 1995)."Page One – East Bay Newspaper Chain Sold / Knight-Ridder buys Contra Costa Times".SFGate. RetrievedJanuary 7, 2014.
- ^Egelko, Bob (December 20, 2006)."Hearst-MediaNews ruling extended".San Francisco Chronicle. RetrievedJanuary 5, 2007.
- ^Egelko, Bob (April 25, 2007)."Hearst, MediaNews Group settle Reilly suit".San Francisco Chronicle. RetrievedMay 31, 2007.
- ^George Avalos."Bay Area News Group announces it will retain East Bay mastheads".Oakland Tribune. Archived fromthe original on January 18, 2012. RetrievedOctober 27, 2011.
- ^Marissa Lang (March 2, 2016)."Oakland loses Tribune, with paper folded into new East Bay Times".SFGate. RetrievedMarch 15, 2016.
- ^"Bay Area News Group consolidates newspapers in Silicon Valley, East Bay and on the Peninsula".Silicon Valley Business Journal. RetrievedApril 19, 2016.
- ^"Breaking News Reporting". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved July 6, 2021.
- ^"San Francisco Bay Area News Media Company - Community News | Bay Area News Group". RetrievedSeptember 6, 2020.
