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 The January 18, 2012, front page of the San Antonio Express-News | |
| Type | Daily newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Hearst Communications |
| Publisher | Mark Medici |
| Editor | Marc Duvoisin[1] |
| Founded | 1865 |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | Avenue E and Third Street San Antonio, Texas 78205 United States |
| Circulation | 58,624 (as of 2023)[2] |
| ISSN | 2690-7143 |
| OCLC number | 61312326 |
| Website | expressnews.com |
TheSan Antonio Express-News is a daily newspaper inSan Antonio, Texas, founded in 1865. It is owned by theHearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio andAustin, Texas. TheExpress-News is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with a daily circulation of nearly 100,000 copies in 2016.[3] The newspaper's online presence can be found atExpressnews.com.[4] Hearst also ownsMYSanAntonio.com, which shares office space with the Express-News but maintains a separate newsroom and website.[5] MYSanAntonio.com, orMySA, is editorially independent of ExpressNews.com.[6]
From 1881, the San Antonio Express-News' main competitor was theSan Antonio Evening Light, which became a Hearst publication in 1924 and was shut down, in 1993, when Hearst bought theExpress-News.
The paper was first published in 1865 as a weekly tabloid-style newspaper under the nameSan Antonio Express. At that time, the city had already had a number of other newspapers in a number of different languages. However, all the other publications went out of business, leaving only theExpress to serve the city.[citation needed]
In December 1866, theExpress made the move from a weekly paper to a daily newspaper, and expanded into a full newspaper by the early 1870s. The early days of theExpress was marked by several leadership changes which almost doomed the paper, until a brand new company, the Express Printing Company, took control in 1875. TheExpress eventually became a daily morning newspaper in 1878.[citation needed]
In January 1881, a new rival newspaper, theEvening Light, was first published by A. W. Gifford andJ. P. Newcomb, who had been an early investor in theExpress.[7] TheEvening Light was published as an afternoon paper, as opposed to the morningExpress. At first, the editors of theExpress chose to ignore the upstart paper, but theLight soon grew in popularity at the turn of the 20th century. In 1906 theDaily Light was sold to E. B. Chandler, and in 1909 the Daily Light Publishing Company bought theSan Antonio Gazette. From then until 1911 the paper was referred to as theLight and Gazette. Edward S. O'Reilly, known as Tex, was at one time managing editor. In 1911 Harrison L. Beach and Charles S. Diehl, veteran correspondents of national standing, moved to San Antonio and bought theLight and Gazette. Once again it was known as theLight. Diehl was a founder of the AP wire service. Beach and Diehl installed leased wire news service and published the first full stock market reports in a San Antonio paper. TheLight became liberal-Democratic in its political views. While Beach and Diehl ran the paper, circulation increased from 11,000 to 25,000 copies daily. In 1918, theExpress ownership, now renamed Express Publishing Company, launched its own afternoon paper, theSan Antonio Evening News. Soon thereafter, a rivalry developed between workers of theExpress and theNews. In fact, someNews workers dubbed a new office building as theNews-Express building. In 1924, however,William Randolph Hearst bought theLight and instituted Hearst policies, and by 1945 the circulation was approximately 70,000.[citation needed]
The 1920s was marked by expansion by Express Publishing as the company started one of the city's first radio stations,WOAI, in 1922. As the two rival publishers entered the 1950s, theExpress and theNews both had higher readership numbers than theLight. However, theLight skyrocketed to the top of the market when it acquired a number of popular comic strips, likeDick Tracy. The Express Publishing Company diversified further, acquiring two more radio stations and a television station, which they renamedKENS-TV. Those call letters were intended to stand for, K-Express News Station. In the 1960s, Express Publishing was sold to theHarte-Hanks newspaper group.[citation needed]
In 1973, with theLight beating both theExpress and theNews in circulation numbers, a new ownership group emerged. Australian nativeRupert Murdoch ofNews Corp bought theExpress and theNews from Harte-Hanks. Murdoch re-formatted theNews as a more tabloid-styled paper, while theExpress retained its original, conservative format. TheLight was now forced to compete against two different styles of newspaper while at the same time trying to combat the growing costs of an afternoon circulation.[citation needed]
By September 1984, theExpress and theNews merged into theSan Antonio Express-News and afternoon service was slowly discontinued, while theLight started getting into the morning circulation business in order to keep up. But underNews Corp., theExpress-News adopted a more mainstream format and expanded its services to communities outsideBexar County. As a result, theExpress-News became San Antonio's leading newspaper for good. By 1992, News Corp had diversified into movies and television and was looking to sell theExpress-News. The Hearst Corporation, which still owned theLight, agreed to either sell or close the newspaper and acquire theExpress-News in order to keep its stake in the San Antonio market. TheLight never found a buyer and it went out of business in January 1993.[citation needed]
In 2019, theExpress-News sold its downtown headquarters building. The planned move to another downtown property was delayed as theCOVID-19 pandemic led to the staff working remotely. In 2022, the paper relocated to the top two floors of the Light Building, which is named after its former tenant and Hearst property, The San Antonio Light. Following this move, employees began transitioning back to in-person work, and the news organization now operates under a hybrid model.[8]
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