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The Oklahoman

This article is about the Oklahoma City newspaper. For the 1957 western film, see The Oklahoman (film).
The Oklahoman
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Gannett
PublisherGannett Media
EditorRay Rivera
Founded1889; 135 years ago (1889)
HeadquartersOklahoma City, Oklahoma
Circulation
  • 25,304 daily
  • 33,047 Sunday
(as of 2022)[1]
OCLC number26181551
Websitewww.oklahoman.com Edit this at Wikidata

The Oklahoman is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area.[2] The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th largest U.S. newspaper in circulation.[3]

The Oklahoman has been published by Gannett (formerly known as GateHouse Media) owned by Fortress Investment Group and its investor Softbank since October 1, 2018. On November 11, 2019, GateHouse Media and Gannett announced GateHouse Media would be acquiring Gannett and taking the Gannett name.[4] The acquisition of Gannett was finalized on November 19, 2019.[2][3]

Copies are sold for $2 daily or $3 Sundays/Thanksgiving Day; prices are higher outside Oklahoma County and adjacent counties.

Ownership

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The newspaper was founded in 1889 by Sam Small and taken over in 1903 by Edward K. Gaylord. Gaylord would run the paper for 71 years, and upon his death, the paper remained under the Gaylord family.

It was announced on September 15, 2011, that all Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO) assets, including The Oklahoman, would be sold to Denver-based businessman Philip Anschutz and his Anschutz Corporation.[5] The sale of OPUBCO to Philip Anschutz closed in October 2011, and the Oklahoma Publishing Company remained independent in operation. Other Anschutz-owned newspapers include The Gazette of Colorado Springs and the Washington Examiner.

In 2018, Anschutz sold The Oklahoman Media Company portion of OPUBCO to GateHouse Media for $12.5 million.[6] which included The Oklahoman, NewsOK.com, BigWing and The Oklahoman Direct, marking the first time in the newspaper's history that it would be owned by a publicly traded company.[7]

On November 11, 2019, GateHouse Media and Gannett announced GateHouse Media would be acquiring Gannett and taking the Gannett name. The Gannett corporate merger/acquisition closed on November 19, 2019.[8] The November 20, 2019 (Volume 129,323) issue of The Oklahoman was the first to show Gannett as the copyright owner, reflecting the rebranding of GateHouse Media to Gannett.

Headquarters

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A band plays outside The Oklahoman's Oklahoma City headquarters.

The Oklahoman's offices are located at 100 W. Main in the Century Center office building, connected to the Sheraton Hotel, in downtown Oklahoma City. In 2021, The Oklahoman's staff vacated the newsroom for renovations after KWTV-DT News9 took over the space as Griffin Communications, purchased the building.[9] The Oklahoman rented part of the space from the new owners.

The Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO) which owned The Oklahoman until 2018, was headquartered at N.W. 4th Street and Broadway in downtown Oklahoma City until 1991, when it moved to a 12-story tower at Broadway Extension and Britton Road in the northern part of the city.[10] That building was sold to American Fidelity Assurance in 2012. Office space was then leased back to OPUBCO until plans were finalized for the company to move its headquarters.

After a 23-year absence from downtown Oklahoma City, The Oklahoman staff (and most OPUBCO employees) moved to the office's current location in early 2015. In 2016, printing and production at the facility at Broadway Extension and Britton Road was shifted to The Tulsa World and the Oklahoman facility closed. As part of the closure, 130 employees were laid off, and pre-production and layout services were sourced to the GateHouse Media-owned Center for News and Design in Austin, Texas.[11][12] The former production plant at Broadway Extension and Britton Road was razed by the site's new owner, American Fidelity Assurance, and as of 2021, new construction and development was taking place in the area.

History

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Early years

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Founded in 1889 in Oklahoma City by Sam Small, The Daily Oklahoman was taken over in 1903 by The Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), controlled by Edward K. Gaylord, also known as E. K. Gaylord. In 1916, OPUBCO purchased the failing Oklahoma Times and operated it as an evening newspaper for the next 68 years.[13]

In 1928, E. K. Gaylord bought Oklahoma's first radio station, WKY. More than 20 years later, he signed on Oklahoma's first television station, WKY-TV (now KFOR-TV). The two stations would be the anchors of a broadcasting empire that, at its height, included six television stations and five radio stations. Nearly all of the Gaylord broadcasting interests would be sold off by 1996, though The Oklahoman held onto WKY radio until 2002.[14]

E. K. Gaylord died at the age of 101, having controlled the newspaper for the previous 71 years. Management of the newspaper passed to his son, Edward L. Gaylord, who managed the newspaper from 1974 to 2003. Christy Gaylord Everest, daughter of Edward L. Gaylord and granddaughter of E. K. Gaylord, was the company's chairwoman and CEO until 2011. Christy Everest was assisted by her sister Louise Gaylord Bennett until the sale of the company in 2011 to Philip Anschutz.

The Oklahoman moved to a 12-story tower at Broadway Extension and Britton Road in the northern part of the city in 1991. The office moved to its current location in Oklahoma City's Century Center in 2015.

2000s to present

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In October 2003, The Daily Oklahoman was renamed The Oklahoman with OPUBCO and future owner GateHouse Media officially retaining the registered trademarks of The Daily Oklahoman, The Sunday Oklahoman, and The Oklahoma City Times to this day.[15]

In November 2008, The Oklahoman announced that it was reducing its circulation area to cover approximately the western two-thirds of the state, rather than statewide. This shift halted delivery in Tulsa, which reduced the paper's circulation by about 7,000 homes.[16][17]

In January 2009, The Oklahoman and the Tulsa World announced a content-sharing agreement in which each paper would carry some content created by the other; the papers also said they would "focus on reducing some areas of duplication, such as sending reporters from both The Oklahoman and the World to cover routine news events."[18]

In 2010, The Oklahoman introduced the first iPad app for a newspaper/multimedia company of its size in the United States.[19][20]

In 2018, publisher Chris Reen was replaced by interim publisher Jim Hopson.[21] Later that year, editor Kelly Dyer Fry was announced to replace Hopson as publisher. She retained her roles as editor and vice president of news. Dyer Fry retired in November 2020,[22] and in 2021, Ray Rivera was named the new executive editor of The Oklahoman.[23] He also oversees Gannett's Sunbelt region, which encompasses some 42 daily and weekly newspapers in Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Controversies

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A 1998 American Journalism Review survey acknowledged The Oklahoman's positive contributions as a corporate citizen of Oklahoma, but characterized the paper as suffering from understaffing, uninspired content, and political bias.[24] In 1999, the Columbia Journalism Review published an article calling The Oklahoman the "Worst Newspaper in America"; the CJR cited the paper's conformance to the right-wing political views of the Gaylord family, alleged racist hiring practices, and high costs of ads.[25] In more recent years OPUBCO Communications Group has won a number of awards for innovations, newspaper redesign, First Amendment coverage, sports coverage, breaking news and in-depth multimedia projects.[26]

On May 1, 2014, the sports section ran the headline "Mr. Unreliable" in reference to Kevin Durant's performance against the Memphis Grizzlies during the 2014 NBA Playoffs. The headline drew national criticism. Sports Director Mike Sherman later issued an apology.[27]

On June 3, 2020, the editorial board published an opinion piece about the George Floyd protests with the word "thuggish" in the headline. After considerable backlash, the editorial board issued an apology.[28]

The August 15, 2021 edition of The Oklahoman was designed by staff at Gannett's Design Center.

Past products

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The last edition of the evening Oklahoma City Times was published on Feb. 29, 1984. It was folded into The Daily Oklahoman beginning with the March 1, 1984 issue.[29]

Look At OKC was launched in 2006 as a weekly alt magazine to compete with the Oklahoma Gazette. It was distributed in free racks throughout the Oklahoma City metro area until it was quietly discontinued, with the final issue being published on June 28, 2018.[30]

In December 2017, The Oklahoman launched a premium quarterly magazine titled The OK (pronounced 'oak'). This magazine was bundled with Sunday editions of The Oklahoman, as well as distributed via newsstands. Each issue would cover a different topic including food, travel, or health, with the final issue of the year being a photography-centric issue. It appears The OK was discontinued in late 2018, with the final issue being released that December.[31]

NewsOK was originally launched on August 19, 2001, as a joint venture between KWTV-DT and The Oklahoman; however, OPUBCO would obtain full control of NewsOK in 2008. NewsOK would continue to serve as OPUBCO's online news brand, and the "OK' branding would be expanded to other online properties including HomesOK, CarsOK, and JobsOK. However, due to market confusion and a desire to have a unified brand across print and digital media, The Oklahoman announced it would retire the NewsOK brand and redirect all NewsOK.com URLs to Oklahoman.com on May 22, 2019.[32] As of June 9, 2020, over one year after the brand was retired, the NewsOK brand could still be seen at Oklahoman.com, including as the site's favicon and branding within several sections of the website, including Autos, BrandInsight, Homes, Obituaries, Local A&E, Parties Extra, Videos, Shop, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Use.

In November 2019, while attempting to merge the @NewsOK and @TheOklahoman Twitter handles, The Oklahoman lost control of both handles to an unknown third party. This forced the newspaper to begin using @TheOklahoman_ as its official Twitter handle.[33]

Circulation

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Circulation stood at 25,304 daily subscribers, according to a 2022 annual report published by Gannet.[1] In 2018, The Oklahoman reported an average paid circulation of 92,073, with digital subscriptions making up 20,409 of that number, according to an Oklahoman article published December 27, 2018.[34]

Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning

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In 1939, Charles George Werner, a rookie political cartoonist at the newspaper, won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. The winning cartoon, "Nomination for 1938", depicted the Nobel Peace Prize resting on a grave marked "Czechoslovakia 1919–1938". Published on October 6, 1938, the cartoon bit at the recently concluded Munich Agreement, which transferred the Sudetenland (a strategically important part of Czechoslovakia) to Nazi Germany.[35]

Another notable cartoonist for the paper was Jim Lange, who worked for the paper for 58 years and produced over 19,000 cartoons.[36]

Awards

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References

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  1. ^ a b Gannett. "Form 10-K". Securities & Exchange Commission. Securities & Exchange Commission. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Tracy, Marc (November 19, 2019). "Gannett, Now Largest U.S. Newspaper Chain, Targets 'Inefficiencies'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  3. ^ a b Bomey, Nathan. "CEOs of new Gannett: 'Pivot' needed for digital transformation as merger is completed". USA Today. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
  4. ^ 28, 2018|work=USAtoday.com|access-date=}}
  5. ^ Krehbiel, Randy (September 16, 2011). "Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz buys The Oklahoman, OPUBCO". Tulsaworld.com.
  6. ^ "New Media Announces Solid Fourth Quarter & Full Year 2018 Results, Dividend of $0.38 per Common Share"[permanent dead link‍], SeekingAlpha, February 27, 2019.
  7. ^ "The Oklahoman Sold". Public Radio Tulsa. September 28, 2018.
  8. ^ "Archived". www.usatoday.com. USA Today. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2023.
  9. ^ Dishman, David. "News 9 will move offices to downtown Oklahoma City". The Oklahoman. Retrieved October 5, 2021.
  10. ^ Steve Lackmayer, "101-year-old panoramic photo shows different downtown Oklahoma City", The Oklahoman, July 27, 2014.
  11. ^ "OPUBCO eyes downtown move". NewsOK.com. January 14, 2013.
  12. ^ "The Oklahoman to outsource production of its print edition", The Oklahoman, June 8, 2016.
  13. ^ Dary, David (February 16, 2003). "Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO)". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 19, 2012. Retrieved November 30, 2012.
  14. ^ WKY | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. www.okhistory.org. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  15. ^ [1], Daily Oklahoman., November 11, 2019.
  16. ^ "The Oklahoman newspaper ends Tulsa delivery," Tulsa World, November 6, 2008.
  17. ^ Oklahoman redraws boundaries,The Oklahoman, November 6, 2008.
  18. ^ Joe Strupp, "Tulsa World, Oklahoman to Share Content," Archived 2011-05-24 at the Wayback Machine Editor & Publisher, January 23, 2009.
  19. ^ Damon Kiesow, "The Oklahoman offers subscription-based iPad app", Poynter.org, October 24, 2010.
  20. ^ Damon Kiesow, "Oklahoman circumvents iTunes store, keeps revenues", Poynter.org, November 16, 2010.
  21. ^ "GateHouse Media buys The Oklahoman Media Company", The Oklahoman, September 27, 2018.
  22. ^ "Kelly Dyer Fry to retire as editor, publisher of The Oklahoman". The Oklahoman. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  23. ^ Staff reports. "Ray Rivera named as executive editor for The Oklahoman". The Oklahoman. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  24. ^ James V. Risser, "State of the American Newspaper: Endangered Species", American Journalism Review, June 1998.
  25. ^ Selcraig, Bruce (January–February 1999). "The Worst Newspaper in America". Columbia Journalism Review. Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Archived from the original on May 8, 1999. Retrieved May 9, 2018.
  26. ^ OPUBCO Awards at The Oklahoman website (accessed December 1, 2010).
  27. ^ "The Oklahoman apologizes for calling Thunder's Kevin Durant 'Mr. Unreliable'", Sports Illustrated, May 1, 2014.
  28. ^ "The Oklahoman’s Editorial Writer Apologizes for Calling Protestors “Thuggish.”", The Lost Ogle, June 8, 2020.
  29. ^ "The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Okla.) 1894-1984". Library of Congress. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
  30. ^ "RIP: Look At OKC", The Lost Ogle, August 7, 2018.
  31. ^ "The OK", The Oklahoman, November 19, 2019.
  32. ^ "The Oklahoman has retired NewsOK.com…", The Lost Ogle, May 23, 2019.
  33. ^ "Regarding the Twitter name change...", Twitter, November 7, 2019.
  34. ^ "The Oklahoman to trim circulation area for home deliveries", The Oklahoman, December 27, 2018.
  35. ^ Heinz Dietrich Fischer & Erika Fischer, The Pulitzer Prize Archive, vol 13: Editorial Cartoon Awards, 1922-1997 (Walter de Gruyter, 1999), ISBN 978-3-598-30183-4, p. 70. Excerpt available at Google Books.
  36. ^ After 58 years, Lange Takes 'Early' Retirement", AAEC Editorial Cartoon News, December 5, 2008.
  37. ^ "List of Heartland Emmy Awards - Detail" (PDF). emmyawards.tv/index.php. 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  38. ^ a b c d e f "List of 2013 Addy Award Winners - Detail" (PDF). okcadclub.com. 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2013.
  39. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r OPUBCO Awards at The Oklahoman website (accessed November 24, 2013).
  40. ^ "Society of News Design - Detail". Office.snd.org. April 29, 2005. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  41. ^ "Salute to Excellence - National Association of Black Journalists". Nabj.org. February 5, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  42. ^ Online News Association (November 20, 2012). "2010 Awards - Online News Association". Journalists.org. Archived from the original on October 1, 2010. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  43. ^ Online News Association. "Online News Association". Journalists.org. Archived from the original on September 25, 2010. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  44. ^ Online News Association. "Online News Association". Journalists.org. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  45. ^ "SNPA". Snpainfo.org. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  46. ^ "News - APME - Associated Press Media Editors". APME. Archived from the original on April 18, 2010. Retrieved February 16, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  47. ^ "NewsOK ranks among best sites". News OK. April 16, 2009. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  48. ^ "Society of Professional Journalists News: Announcing winners of the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi Awards for journalism". Spj.org. April 13, 2009. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  49. ^ "Society of Professional Journalists: First Amendment Awards". Spj.org. Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  50. ^ Indiana University School of Journalism. "APSE". Apsportseditors.org. Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved February 16, 2013.