 | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Newspapers of New England |
| Publisher | Shawn Palmer |
| Editor | Dan Crowley |
| Founded | September 6, 1786; 239 years ago (1786-09-06) |
| Headquarters | 23 Service Center Road Northampton, Massachusetts 01060 United States |
| Circulation | 10,111 Daily 10,111Saturday (as of 2022)[1] |
| Website | gazettenet |
TheDaily Hampshire Gazette is a six-day morningdaily newspaper based inNorthampton, Massachusetts, United States, and covering all ofHampshire County, southern towns ofFranklin County, andHolyoke.[2] The newspaper prints Monday through Saturday, with the latter labeled "Weekend Edition". As of 2025, it is the longest running daily newspaper in Massachusetts.
Newspapers of New England, based inConcord, New Hampshire, owns both theGazette and the main daily to the north,The Recorder ofGreenfield, Massachusetts. TheGazette also competes in its own coverage area withThe Republican, a regional daily inSpringfield.
In addition to the daily newspaper,Gazette newsrooms publish oneweekly newspaper serving Northampton's suburbs, based in the newspaper's Northampton building. NNE also owns one regionalalternative weekly.[3]
First published September 6, 1786—with a news item aboutShays' Rebellion—theGazette is one of oldest newspapers in the country,[5] and had been owned by the DeRose family since 1929 before being sold for an undisclosed amount of money in 2005. The paper was sold to Newspapers of New England, said then-publisher and co-owner Peter L. DeRose, because there were no younger members of the family willing to take over the business.[6]
DeRose, who stayed on as publisher for another year under the new owners, became co-publisher upon the death of his father, Charles N. DeRose, in 1970. Charles' mother, Harriet Williams DeRose, had purchased theGazette in 1929. Peter and his brother Charles W. DeRose were credited with moving the newspaper's offices to a modern building just outside downtownNorthampton on Conz Street; paying and treatingGazette employees well; and being a pioneer in establishing anInternet presence, now known asgazettenet.com.[7]
Originally an afternoon newspaper, theGazette responded to shifting readership demographics by moving its publication time earlier in the day, although it long resisted making the switch to early morning delivery on weekdays (the Saturday edition converted to morning distribution in the early 1970s). By the time of theNewspapers of New England sale, theGazette was available at downtown newsstands as early as 11:30 a.m., although subscribers still had to wait until after mid-afternoon for delivery by schoolchildren. Under the new management, however, theGazette opted to make the change to six-day morning publication in September 2006, partly to compete better with the rival SpringfieldRepublican.[8]
In late 2007, Newspapers of New England purchased a competingalternative weekly newspaper, theValley Advocate ofNorthampton. TheAdvocate had begun as an independent newspaper but was then owned byAdvocate Weekly Newspapers, which also published weeklies inConnecticut. TheAdvocate's owner at the time, theTribune Company, sold the Massachusetts weekly to focus on its Connecticut properties, which included theHartford Courant daily. TheGazette's owners announced they would move theValley Advocate offices to Northampton, but would retain separate news and advertising staffs from the daily. In late March 2020 the Valley Advocate stopped their print edition and went to online only.[4]
In November 2018, 72 staffers at theDaily Hampshire Gazette andValley Advocate informed newspaper management that they were forming a union with theNewsGuild-Communications Workers of America and seek voluntary recognition from owners.[9] In July 2020 Newspapers of New England shut down the press, opened in 2007, and moved the printing of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, the Amherst Bulletin, and the Greenfield Recorder, to an outside printing company.