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 Front page of the October 14, 2011 edition of Public Opinion | |
| Type | Dailynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Gannett |
| Publisher | Ron Clausen |
| Editor | Becky Bennett |
| Founded | 1869 (asThe Franklin Repository) |
| Headquarters | 77 North Third Street Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201  United States |
| Circulation | 16,166 Daily 17,768 Weekend |
| Website | publicopiniononline |
ThePublic Opinion is a morning newspaper that is published seven days per week. It is located in theGreater Chambersburg area and serves readers inFranklin,Cumberland andFulton counties in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
The newspaper also publishes a weekly total market coverage product,The Advertiser, and a monthlyFaith magazine.
Since 1869, when the first edition came off a flatbed press in a Main Street building in downtown Chambersburg,Public Opinion has been a part of life in theCumberland Valley, and the county's most comprehensive source of local news and information.
Public Opinion began as a weekly newspaper and then became a daily that was initially published in the morning; in 1921, it became an afternoon paper. By 1931, the publishers ofPublic Opinion had bought two other newspapers with long histories inFranklin County,The Franklin Repository andValley Spirit.
Founded by M.A. Foltz,Public Opinion remained in the Foltz family until 1964, when it was purchased byMcClure Newspapers.
In 1971,Public Opinion became the twenty-seventh newspaper owned byGannett,[1] which publishesUSA Today and the weekly newspaper magazineUSA Weekend, will be replaced byParade (magazine). The latter is an insert inPublic Opinion on Saturdays.
Public Opinion again became a morning newspaper in 2005, the same year thatMediaNews Group Inc.[2] took over controlling ownership as the newspaper's majority partner of the Texas-New Mexico Newspaper Partnership.[3]
MediaNews, headquartered inDenver, Colo., is one of the nation's largest newspaper companies. It publishes 54 daily newspapers in 11 states.
The MediaNews Group-Gannett partnership includes three other south central Pennsylvania newspapers: theYork Daily Record andYork Sunday News,Lebanon Daily News, andThe Evening Sun of Hanover, and newspapers inEl Paso, Texas andNew Mexico. In the spring of 2015, however, it was anticipated that Gannett would again take control of some of MediaNews Group's holdings, including the Pennsylvania publications.[4] Later in 2015, Gannett acquired full ownership of the Pennsylvania joint venture.[5]
Public Opinion's The current headquarters of the public opinion is at 5 N. Main St. in Chambersburg, PA. Its previous home at North Third and East King streets was built circa 1875 as a passenger station of theCumberland Valley Railroad and served in that role until 1914. It was later used as a canteen forWorld War I soldiers passing through town and had a variety of manufacturing uses before 1956, whenPublic Opinion assumed occupancy.
In 2007,Public Opinion replaced its fifty-year-oldletterpress with a Goss Urbanite offset press, and also introduced a Sunday edition.
Today, the newspaper isFranklin County's largest daily newspaper, with a circulation of about 16,200 Mondays through Fridays and 18,000 Saturday/Sunday "Weekend Edition".
Public Opinion's web site, www.publicopiniononline.com,[6] provides 24/7 local, national and world news and sports, breaking news updates and news videos, local photo galleries, discussion forums, entertainment and classifieds, attracting more than 400,000 visitors each month.
In addition to the daily edition and web site,Public Opinion offers its readers and advertisers a complete line of products, ranging from seasonal special sections to preprinted inserts (national coupon inserts on Saturdays).
