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History
Early Years
The history of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette goes back to the earliest days of territorial Arkansas. William E. Woodruff arrived at the territorial capital at Arkansas Post, Arkansas in late 1819 on a dugout canoe with a second-hand wooden press. He cranked out the first edition of the Arkansas Gazette on 20 November 1819. Early in its history the Gazette scrupulously avoided political involvement or endorsement.
In 1821 the territorial capital was moved to Little Rock, Arkansas and Woodruff moved his Gazette along with it. The Gazette led the campaign for Arkansas statehood which was accomplished in 1836 and constantly promoted new immigration to the state.
The Gazette supported Texas independence and called for volunteers from Arkansas to assist the Texans and supported the Mexican War. In the 1840s Woodruff lost control of the paper and established a competing paper, the Arkansas Democrat.
During the 1850s Woodruff regained control of the Gazette and combined the two papers into the Arkansas State Gazette and Democrat. Later he shortened the name to the Arkansas State Gazette.
Civil War Era
The Gazette struggled through the early civil war years facing financial problems and shortages of supplies. The Gazette had initially been a pro-Union paper but altered its position after Lincoln's call for troops.
In 1863 Little Rock fell to Union troops and the Gazette suspended publication until May 1865 while Federal authorities used the presses for their own publications.
Competition after the Civil War
During the reconstruction years a competitor arose called by a variety of names, under a variety of editors, and with several different owners. In 1878 a former Confederate bought the newspaper, changed its name to the Arkansas Democrat and went after lucrative state printing contracts held by the Gazette. These were the opening shots in one of the great newspaper wars of all time, a war that would last a century.
The Gazette and the Democrat engaged in a war of words that soon escalated into an exchange of gunfire between the owner of the Democrat and a part-owner of the Gazette.
Over the years the Gazette and the Democrat supported opposing candidates and took opposite editorial positions. Throughout the simmering battle the Gazette continued to be the dominant state newspaper. The Gazette was owned by John Netherland Heiskell who guided the Gazette with a firm hand through most of the twentieth century.
The Newspaper War
In 1957 the Gazette took a strong editorial stance against Governor Orval Faubus in the Little Rock Crisis of 1957. The Gazette was awarded two Pulitzer Prizes for its stand. Despite its honors the circulation of the Gazette began to drop after the crisis.
In 1974 the Democrat was sold to a group of investors. The publishing duties went to Walter E. Hussman, Jr, the son of the head of the investment group. At the time of Hussman's arrival the morning Gazette was far in front of the afternoon Democrat. Hussman embarked on a campaign of major cost reductions and concentrating subscription effort on the Little Rock urban market. These efforts had little success and by 1977 Hussman attempted to reach an agreement with the Gazette to combine operations but his overtures were rejected.
Hussman angrily fought back and was intent on becoming the state's largest newspaper. A war to the death ensued between the two papers. The Democrat expanded its news operation, offered free classified advertisements, and switched from afternoon publication to morning publication.
In 1979 Hussman appointed John Robert Starr to the position of managing editor. The fiery and irascible Starr was photographed squatting atop a Gazette newspaper box with a dagger between his teeth to show his seriousness. Starr doubled the size of the news staff and concentrated on hard news. Under Starr's direction readership increased steadily. During 1980 the Democrat was the fastest growing newspaper in the United States.
The Gazette responded by hiring new staff, going to a color format, and suing the Democrat for trying to put it out of business.
Gannett had immense assets with which to fight the Democrat but received criticism for bringing in out of town reporters and staff and losing the local feel of the paper. The Gazette, nicknamed "The Old Gray Lady", became flashier but critics complained that the paper had lost the respect of the readership.
Over the next five years the two newspapers dueled. The readership of the Gazette remained steady over that period of time, but the daily readership of the Democrat went from 78,000 to 133,000 and the Sunday readership leapt ahead of the Gazettes by a considerable margin.
Merger of the Gazette and Democrat
The lawsuit filed by the Gazette against the Democrat failed and their efforts at modernizing the paper had little success in attracting readership. The financial losses of the fiercely contested battle were too much for Gannett to justify. The "Old Gray Lady" published her last edition on 18 October 1991. Gannett sold the Gazette and all of its assets to the Democrat and the next morning, 19 October, the first edition of the combined Arkansas Democrat-Gazette was published. Most Arkansans, regardless of which paper they subscribed to, were saddened by the sudden loss of their historic newspaper.
Many of the reporters and staff of the more liberal Gazette were thrown out of work and not picked up by the more conservative Democrat-Gazette. Many of these former employees were bitter at Gannett for their management of the newspaper war and angry at the Democrat for achieving victory. Many employees left for other markets while some who remained established the Arkansas Times in order to provide a more liberal weekly alternative to the dominant conservative paper.
In the years since the merger the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has maintained a higher circulation than newspapers in similarly sized cities. Many newspapers that defeated in-town rivals concentrated on reducing costs and reduced news coverage to meet their goals. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has continued to balance quality goals with profitability. Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Greenberg was appointed the Democrat-Gazette editorial page editor soon after the end of the newspaper war.
Critics of the Democrat-Gazette continue to argue that the paper is more conservative than its Little Rock subscriber base. The Democrat-Gazette points out that its editorial pages are open to many different viewpoints and that it accurately reflects its statewide constituency.