 | |
| Type | private |
|---|---|
| Founded | c. 1905 |
| Founder | Ira Clifton Copley |
| Defunct | 2009 |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Products | Newspapers |
| Owner | Copley family |
| Subsidiaries | The San Diego Union-Tribune Copley News Service |
Copley Press was a privately held newspaper business, founded in Illinois but later based in La Jolla, California. [1] Its flagship paper was The San Diego Union-Tribune .
Founder Ira Clifton Copley launched Copley Press c. 1905, eventually amassing over two dozen papers. After selling the Western Utility Corporation, Copley purchased twenty-four newspapers in Southern California for $7.5 million. He managed these publishing holdings as Copley Press, Inc. and was its first president, serving until 1942.
Copley Press purchased Springfield's Illinois State Journal in 1927. In 1942, Copley bought the Journal's Democratic-oriented competitor, the Illinois State Register, promising that the Register could keep its independent editorial voice. [2] The two papers were merged in 1974 into The State Journal-Register .
In 1928, Copley bought the San Diego Union and San Diego Tribune, which eventually became the company's flagship publications. Later that year, Senator George W. Norris accused Copley Press of receiving money from public utility companies, but Copley successfully defended his position before the Federal Trade Commission in 1929.[ citation needed ] The two papers operated separate editions until 1992, when they were merged as The San Diego Union-Tribune .
Copley News Service — a wire service that distributed news, political cartoons, and opinion columns — was founded in 1955. [3]
Copley Press began selling off properties in the 2000s. Hollinger International bought the Company's Chicago-area publications ( The Herald News , The Beacon News , The Courier News , and The News Sun , along with several smaller papers) in 2000. The remaining Illinois papers ( The State Journal-Register , the Peoria Journal Star , The Repository , and some smaller papers) were sold to GateHouse Media in 2007.
In 2006, the Daily Breeze was sold to Hearst. In December 2007, the Union-Tribune reported that Copley Press was selling La Casa del Zorro, a resort it owned in Borrego Springs. Copley News Service itself was sold to Creators Syndicate for an undisclosed price and renamed Creators News Service, on 1 July 2008.
In late July 2008, the company began seeking buyers for the Union-Tribune, as well as several other businesses like Enlace, a free Spanish-language tabloid, and SignOnSanDiego.com, the online arm of the U-T. [4] The announcement did not make clear what, if anything, would be left with the Copley Press name. Platinum Equity agreed in March 2009 to purchase the Union-Tribune for an unspecified sum. [5] Copley Press currently is working with Evercore Partners, the same company that helped sell off other business units, to determine a price for the remaining assets.
Declining advertising revenue was cited as the reason for the company's dissolution. [4]
Copley News Service and The San Diego Union-Tribune, with notable work by Marcus Stern and Jerry Kammer, won the 2006 National Reporting prize for their disclosure that former Congressman Randy Cunningham received bribes, which ultimately led to his criminal conviction and imprisonment. [6] [7]
Additionally, the San Diego Evening Tribune, predecessor of the Union-Tribune, won Pulitzer Prizes in 1987 and 1979.
In the late 1970s, the American media reported that the Copley Press was used as a front by the Central Intelligence Agency. Reporters Joe Trento and Dave Roman claimed that James S. Copley, who served as publisher until 1973, had cooperated with the CIA since its founding in 1947. They also reported that a subsidiary division, Copley News Service, was used in Latin America by the CIA as a front.
Trento and Roman also said that reporters at the Copley-owned San Diego Union and Evening News spied on antiwar protesters for the FBI. They alleged that, at the height of these operations, at least two dozen Copley employees were simultaneously working for the CIA. James S. Copley was also accused of involvement in the CIA-funded Inter-American Press Association. [8] [9] [10]
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the Los Angeles County city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States, as well as the largest newspaper in the western United States. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes.
The Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been awarded since 1917 for distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction. Thus it is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. The program has also recognized opinion journalism with its Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning from 1922.
This Pulitzer Prize has been awarded since 1942 for a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs in the United States. In its first six years (1942–1947), it was called the Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting – National.
The San Diego Union-Tribune is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868.
Stephen Paul Breen is a nationally syndicated cartoonist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning twice, in 1998 and 2009.
The Journal Star is the major daily newspaper for Peoria, Illinois, and surrounding area. First owned locally, then employee-owned, it became a Copley Press entity in 1996. In 2007, the paper was sold to Fairport, New York–based GateHouse Media.
The East Valley Tribune is a newspaper concentrated on cities within the East Valley region of metropolitan Phoenix, including Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, and Queen Creek.
Tribune Publishing Company is an American newspaper print and online media publishing company. The company, which was acquired by Alden Global Capital in May 2021, has a portfolio that includes the Chicago Tribune, the New York Daily News, The Baltimore Sun, the Orlando Sentinel, South Florida's Sun-Sentinel, The Virginian-Pilot, the Hartford Courant, additional titles in Pennsylvania and Virginia, syndication operations, and websites. It also publishes several local newspapers in its metropolitan regions, which are organized in subsidiary groups.
David C. Copley was an American publishing heir, on the board of the Copley Press for over thirty years, becoming president and owner, as well as publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a noted philanthropist.
The Eagle-Tribune is a seven-day morning daily newspaper covering the Merrimack Valley and Essex County, Massachusetts, and southern New Hampshire. It is the largest-circulation daily newspaper owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc., and the lead property in a regional chain of four dailies and several weekly newspapers in Essex County and southern New Hampshire.
The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1979.
Ira Clifton Copley was an American publisher, politician, and utility tycoon. From 1911 to 1923, he served 6 consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives
Creators Syndicate is an American independent distributor of comic strips and syndicated columns to daily newspapers, websites, and other digital outlets. When founded in 1987, Creators Syndicate became one of the few successful independent syndicates founded since the 1930s and was the first syndicate to allow cartoonists ownership rights to their work. Creators Syndicate is based in Hermosa Beach, California.
James Strohn Copley was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. He published the San Diego Union and the San Diego Evening Tribune, both later merged into The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1992, from 1947 until his death in 1973, and was President of the Inter American Press Association. His politics was "unabashedly conservative, Republican and pro-American". He had close associations with leading Republicans of the era, including Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Copley's presence was a chief reason that the Republican National Convention of 1972 was originally planned to be in San Diego.
The Register-Mail is an American daily newspaper published in Galesburg, Illinois. The paper was owned by the Pritchard family from 1896 to 1989, when it was sold to the Journal Star. Copley Press bought both papers for $174.5 million. In 2007, GateHouse Media bought Copley's Illinois and Ohio papers.
S. Lynne Walker is an American journalist who was the longtime Mexico City bureau chief for Copley News Service.
Marcus Stern is an American journalist who worked for the Copley News Service for nearly 25 years. In 2005 he launched the investigation that led to the bribery conviction of Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a Republican from San Diego County, California. His reporting won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006.
San Diego is one of the major cities in California. The following is a list of media outlets based in the city of San Diego. People in San Diego are also able to receive media from Tijuana, Mexico.
The Daily Journal was a daily newspaper in Wheaton, Illinois that published for almost 60 years, from 1933 until 1992. In its final two decades, it was published by Copley Newspapers and had a final circulation of 7,650. Its origins were in a weekly newspaper founded in 1910 called the DuPage County Tribune.
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