The Henderson Gleaner (also known asThe Gleaner) is the daily newspaper inHenderson, Kentucky. The newspaper is published Tuesday through Sunday mornings. It has not been published on Mondays since it was founded in the 1880s.^[2]

The Gleaner was locally owned for more than a century, but was purchased byA. H. Belo in March 1997, before being acquired by theE. W. Scripps Company on October 31, 2000,^[3] becoming part of theEvansville Courier & Press. Scripps later divested their newspaper holdings, and on April 1, 2015, theJournal Media Group took over as owners of the paper.^[4] In April 2016,Gannett acquired Journal Media Group, including The Gleaner.^[5]

The Gleaner was founded by Clarence Christian Givens in 1883 inProvidence, Kentucky, approximately 35 miles south ofHenderson. Givens remained there for six months, then moved his newspaper farther south toMadisonville, Kentucky. In July 1885, Givens relocated the newspaper to Henderson. It became a daily publication in 1888, with the exception that it produced no Monday edition, and was published as theHenderson Morning Gleaner.

The Gleaner was not the city's first newspaper;The Columbian was first published in 1823, and theHenderson Reporter was in print from 1853 to 1885. At least a dozen other newspapers have also operated in Henderson at various times, but few copies of those papers have survived.

TheHenderson Morning Gleaner competed with theHenderson Evening Journal for several years. By 1909, theEvening Journal was losing $500 a week and had been taken over by its bank. Leigh Harris ofIllinois, bought theJournal, and his first editorial consisted of the single sentence: "I have come to Henderson to run a newspaper".^[6] In around 1920, Harris and the Givens family negotiated a merger of theGleaner andJournal, creating theHenderson Gleaner and Journal. The word "Journal" was dropped from the masthead in 1973. Harris later bought out C. C. Givens altogether, becoming the city's sole newspaper publisher. Harris chaired numerous Henderson causes and committees, including serving as chairman of the localAmerican Red Cross chapter during theOhio River flood of 1937. Henderson was one of the few cities along theOhio River that escaped thefloodwaters of 1937, owing to its position on a bluff well above the river. Harris noted in the newspaper that Henderson was "on the Ohio but never in it", using that as a marketing tool as he and other prominent citizens worked to attract new industries to the city.^[7]

After Harris' death in 1955, his family leased the newspaper to J. Albert Dear ofJersey City, New Jersey. His company, Dear Publication and Radio Inc., bought the newspaper outright two years later. In 1960, the Dear family sent a son, Walter Dear II, to Henderson to serve as promotions manager. He became editor in 1963 and later served as publisher. Dear promoted the community, and was among the city's primary fundraisers for community improvements such as a newYMCA building, a Fine Arts Center on theHenderson Community College campus, a newSalvation Army center and other projects.

When the newspaper dropped the word "Journal" from its masthead on April 27, 1973,^[8] it also changed the print tolower case, as "the gleaner".^[9] It renamed so until August 10, 1997, when the name returned to upper case, as "The Gleaner."^[10]

The newspaper constructed a new office and printing plant at 455 Klutey Park Plaza in the city suburbs, relocating there in 1976. In 1986, Walt and Martha Dear and their children boughtThe Gleaner, several other western Kentucky weekly newspapers, and asmall radio station inFranklin, Kentucky, from the rest of their family. They later also acquired theUnion County Advocate inMorganfield, Kentucky.

In 1997, the Dear family soldThe Gleaner and other media holdings to theA. H. Belo Corp., aTexas media company that ownsTheDallas Morning News. Belo had purchasedThe Messenger-Inquirer in nearbyOwensboro a year earlier. Belo subsequently decided that the two Kentucky newspapers were not core to their business of operating newspapers and television stations in larger high-growth markets, particularly in theSouthwest andPacific Northwest.^[11]

Belo soldThe Gleaner to Scripps in 2000, making it a sister paper to theEvansville Courier & Press. Like Belo, the Courier and E. W. Scripps leftThe Gleaner editorially independent, although Henderson readers later criticized the decision to mergeThe Gleaner andCourier & Pressclassified advertising. The Gleaner's website is merged into a separate section on theCourier & Press Website.

In 2015, Scripps withdrew from the newspaper business to focus on broadcasting. It sold its newspapers, includingThe Gleaner, to the newly formed Journal Media Group on April 1, 2015.

Gannett acquired Journal Media Group effective April 8, 2016. Gleaner staff-written stories are now labeled as being associated with the USA TODAY Network,^[12] which references Gannett's flagship newspaper,USA Today.

The Gleaner's last office in Henderson, Kentucky was at 455 Klutey Park Plaza Drive. The building is now home to a nonprofit service youth with mental health issues.^[13][14] Reporters and photographers whose work is published in The Gleaner are now based out of offices in Evansville, Indiana.

• Three formerGleaner photojournalists went on to receive thePulitzer Prize for their work at other newspapers.
  • Henderson nativeWilliam Snyder has won or shared in three Pulitzers (in 1986, 1991 and 1993) for his work atThe Dallas Morning News, and in 2006 as director of photography of the newspaper, eight members of his staff won a Pulitzer.
  • Keith Williams, also a native ofHenderson, shared in a 1976 Pulitzer withThe Courier-Journal inLouisville, Kentucky.
  • J. Scott Applewhite has shared two Pulitzers (in 1993 and 1999) for his work with TheAssociated Press.^[15]
• Both formerGleaner publisher and owner Walt Dear and retired editor Ron Jenkins were inducted into theKentucky Journalism Hall of Fame at theUniversity of Kentucky's School of Journalism and Telecommunications. Dear was inducted in 1999. Jenkins was inducted in April 2007.^[16]
• In 2016, longtime Gleaner reporters and columnists Chuck and Donna Stinnett were also inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.^[17][18] They are the second husband/wife duo from the Gleaner to be so honored. Columnist Judy Jenkins was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015,^[16] joining her husband, Ron.^[19]
• Journalist and photo agency ownerEwing Galloway was a reporter for theGleaner.

• "Newspaper takes on new name, building". (May 13, 1979).The Gleaner, p. 34.
• Armstrong, Francele Harris,Leigh and Jane—A Love Story. (The Carlton Press, 1974)
• "E.W. Scripps to buy Gleaner," (October 6, 2000).The Gleaner, p. A-1
• "A newspaper's history (A capsule history of The Gleaner)," (October 6, 2000).The Gleaner, p. A-1.
• Letters to the Editor concerning classified ad changes, (March 24, 2001); (March 31, 2001); and (April 4, 2001).The Gleaner, p. A-4.
• "Change is an unsettling thing" column by Gleaner Editor Ron Jenkins, (March 18, 2001).The Gleaner, p. A-4.

• The Gleaner Home Page

• Newspapers published in Kentucky
• Henderson County, Kentucky
• Gannett publications
• Daily newspapers published in the United States
• People from Providence, Kentucky
• Henderson, Kentucky

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