.svg) | |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | Broadsheet |
| Owner | Gannett |
| Editor | Craig Salters |
| Founded | 1830; 195 years ago (1830) |
| Language | English |
| Headquarters | 4 Ocean Street,Hyannis, Massachusetts 02601 |
| Circulation | 1,323 (as of 2018)[1] |
| Website | barnstablepatriot.com/ |
| Free online archives | Sturgis Library |
The Barnstable Patriot is aweeklynewspaper published in and for the town ofBarnstable,Massachusetts,United States. Although it bills itself as "an independent voice since 1830",The Patriot has been owned, since 2019, byGannett.
Founded in 1830,The Barnstable Patriot is Cape Cod's oldest newspaper.[2] It was started bySylvanus B. Phinney; initially apprenticing under the journalistNathan Hale at theBoston Daily Advertiser,[3] he moved toThe Barnstable Journal in 1828, before founding thePatriot two years later, at the age of 22.[3][4]
A weekly paper,[5] the paper espoused democratic values, with Phinney himself a Jacksonian Democrat. In the 1830s, with the founding of theYarmouth Register a considerable back and forth battle emerged from those two papers due to theRegister's championing ofJohn Reed Jr., the local Whig member of Congress.
Phinney sold the paper in 1869 to Franklin B. Goss and George H. Richards.[6] Goss, who had apprenticed at the Patriot before founding a string of local papers, shifted the paper's politics from Democratic to Republican as his own support shifted to supporting President Grant's administration.[7][6] He passed the paper on to his son, Franklin Percy Goss, who sold it to the Crocker family.[8] After a very short tenure, the Crocker family sold it to George Haskins. It remained in the Haskins family for 61 years.[8]
Rob and Toni Sennot bought the paper in 1994, and sold it to Ottaway Newspapers in 2005.[9]
News Corp. acquiredThe Patriot when it boughtDow Jones & Company (Ottaway's parent) forUS$5 billion in late 2007.Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., reportedly told investors before the deal that he would be "selling the local newspapers fairly quickly" after the Dow Jones purchase.[10]
On September 4, 2013,News Corp announced that it would sell the Dow Jones Local Media Group to Newcastle Investment Corp.—an affiliate ofFortress Investment Group, for $87 million. The newspapers will be operated byGateHouse Media, a newspaper group owned by Fortress. News Corp. CEO and formerWall Street Journal editorRobert James Thomson indicated that the newspapers were "not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio" of the company.[11] GateHouse in turn filed prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 27, 2013, to restructure its debt obligations in order to accommodate the acquisition.[12]
Although Ottaway also ownsThe Patriot's main competitor, the dailyCape Cod Times, the weekly newspaper's newsroom is run independently of its rival. Robert F. Sennott Jr., who formerly owned the newspaper, was retained by Ottaway as publisher ofThe Patriot. Ottaway also owns the weeklyThe Inquirer and Mirror ofNantucket and dailyThe Standard-Times ofNew Bedford, Massachusetts.
Community Newspaper Company publishes a competitor weekly newspaper,The Register, inBarnstable.
barnstable patriot.
barnstable patriot.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)41°39′12″N70°16′56″W / 41.653419°N 70.282212°W /41.653419; -70.282212