HISTORY OF KNIGHT NEWSPAPERS
In 1903, Charles Landon Knight exited the legal profession and bought the Akron Beacon Journal. By the late 1930s, Knight's sons had taken over the family business. They paid $2.25 million for the Miami Herald in 1937. The brothers also bought the competing Miami Tribune to gain access to its new printing press, as well as additional equipment and facilities. Eventually, the Knights stopped publishing the Miami Tribune. . In 1939, they enhanced the Miami Herald with additional photographs, comic strips, and new columns.
By 1940, the Knight brothers had adopted the Knight Newspapers moniker. Accomplishments early in the decade included the acquisition of the Detroit Free Press, the $3 million purchase of the Chicago Daily News, and incorporation in Ohio. In 1946, Miami Herald editor Lee Hills launched the Clipper Edition, a consolidated version of the newspaper that was distributed to several Latin American countries. A fire destroyed the Miami newsprint warehouse in 1949. The following year, the Miami Herald was awarded its first Pulitzer Prize for uncovering government corruption in Southern Florida. Knight Newspapers added the Charlotte Observer to its lineup in 1956. Three years later, it purchased rival The Charlotte News. The Chicago Daily News was divested to Marshall Field for $17 million.
CEO James Knight brought Alvah H. Chapman Jr. on board as his assistant in 1960. It was Chapman who first spearheaded the use of computers for tasks ranging from administration and advertising to layout, typesetting, and production. In 1965, the Tallahassee Democrat was acquired. That purchase was followed by four more in 1969: the The Philadelphia News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Macon Telegraph, and the Macon News. The strategy of owning more than one newspaper in a given market worked to eradicate competition for Knight. By the end of the decade, daily circulation had exceeded 2 million, and the company had conducted its initial public offering. Sales in the early 1970s reached $350 million, with profits of roughly $23 million. Knight added another five daily newspapers to its holdings, including two in Columbus, Georgia, two in Lexington, Kentucky, and one in Florida.
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