Advocate Weekly Newspapers
Encyclopedia
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
and western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts is a loosely defined geographical region of the U.S. state of Massachusetts which contains the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley, and some or all of the Swift River Valley. The region is always considered to include Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties, and the...
, published by New Mass. Media Inc., a subsidiary of the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
-based Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
.
The company was founded in 1973 by Geoffrey Robinson and Edward Matys, then copy editors at The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
. Robinson, a native of New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
, worked as Wire Service Editor of the daily Lorain Journal of Ohio after his graduation from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1971. Matys had worked in editorial positions at several Massachusetts and Connecticut newspapers.
The Valley Advocate started publication as a bi-weekly in September 1973 from small basement offices in Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...
. In September 1974, Valley Advocate publication went weekly and Robinson and Matys opened offices in Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
and started publication of the Hartford Advocate. A year later, in September 1975, the pair began publishing the weekly New Haven Advocate and in 1978 started publication of the Fairfield County Advocate (subsequently renamed Fairfield County Weekly to avoid confusion with the neighboring and unrelated Stamford Advocate
The Advocate (Stamford)
The Advocate is a seven-day daily newspaper based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA. The paper shares a publisher and editor with the Greenwich Time; both are owned and operated by the Hearst Corporation, a multinational corporate media conglomerate with $4 billion in revenues.The Advocate circulates...
).
In December 2007, Tribune announced it would sell The Valley Advocate, its only Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
publication, to Newspapers of New England
Newspapers of New England
Newspapers of New England Inc. is a privately-owned publisher of seven daily and weekly newspapers in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.The company's flagship publication is the Concord Monitor, in New Hampshire's capital...
.
Advocate weeklies offer investigative journalism
Investigative journalism
Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...
, national, state and local political coverage, commentary, and arts features and criticism, mostly from a liberal
Social liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
or countercultural
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
point of view. They share some editorial content, but each has regionally focused news and opinion pieces, restaurant reviews, event listings, and advertisements. The newspapers have annual "Best Of" write-in contests, and subsequent issues that feature the winning businesses.
The Advocates accept a wider variety of advertisements than mainstream newspapers, including ads for strip club
Strip club
A strip club is an adult entertainment venue in which striptease or other erotic or exotic dance is regularly performed. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, but can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style....
s, erotic massage
Erotic massage
Erotic massage or sensuous massage is the use of massage techniques to achieve or enhance sexual arousal. Massages have been used for medical purposes for a very long time. Its use for erotic purposes also has a long history. Today it is used by some couples on occasions as part of lovemaking,...
services, adult book and video stores
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, etc., which columnists and readers have argued conflict with the newspapers' avowed feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
New Mass. Media was privately owned until 1999, when its owners, including founding publisher Geoffrey Robinson, sold the company to The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
for an undisclosed sum. A year later, Courant parent company Times-Mirror
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
was bought by Tribune Company
Tribune Company
The Tribune Company is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida...
.
The New Haven Advocate
The New Haven Advocate is published in New Haven, ConnecticutNew Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
. Circulation is 40,000 with an actual readership of about 100,000.
The Hartford Advocate
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
and has a circulation of about 45,000.
The Hartford Advocate was founded in 1974 by Geoffrey Robinson and Edward Matys to fill a void in investigative and beat reporting in the capital city of Connecticut. For example, The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is a morning newspaper for most of the state north of New Haven and east of Waterbury...
, where Robinson and Matys had previously worked, did not routinely cover one of the city's largest industries, insurance
Insurance
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment. An insurer is a company selling the...
. The founding editors including managing editor Dick Polman, recruited from the New London Day, and city editor Bruce Kauffman, from the Courant.
Gail Collins
Gail Collins (journalist)
Gail Gleason Collins is an American journalist, op-ed columnist and author, most recognized for her work with the New York Times. Joining the Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board, from 2001 to 2007 she served as the paper's Editorial Page Editor – the first woman to attain that position...
reported on state government and politics; she is now an op-ed columnist at The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. Another early reporter was David Lieberman, who was later an editorial writer for the Courant and covered the media business for USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
.
Polman left the Advocate after some five years to become a columnist at the Courant and later joined The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
as national political correspondent. He also taught at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
. Kauffman later worked for CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, taught at Emerson College
Emerson College
Emerson College is a private coeducational university located in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," Emerson is "the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts...
in Boston, Morehouse College
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
in Atlanta and the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
. He also worked for the North County Times
North County Times
The North County Times is a local newspaper in north San Diego County, California owned by Lee Enterprises. It is headquartered in Escondido. The current publisher is Peter York....
, one of two daily newspapers in San Diego County, California
San Diego County, California
San Diego County is a large county located in the southwestern corner of the US state of California. Hence, San Diego County is also located in the southwestern corner of the 48 contiguous United States. Its county seat and largest city is San Diego. Its population was about 2,813,835 in the 2000...
.
In a history of the alternative media, A Trumpet to Arms, author David Armstrong described the Advocate as a bastion for the "new muckraker
Muckraker
The term muckraker is closely associated with reform-oriented journalists who wrote largely for popular magazines, continued a tradition of investigative journalism reporting, and emerged in the United States after 1900 and continued to be influential until World War I, when through a combination...
s." The author explored the paper's examination of the behind-the-scenes power exercised by the corporate elite in Hartford. Kauffman had reported that top banks and insurance companies, including Travelers, were funneling the bulk of city pension fund money into companies that propped up the apartheid regime in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. The city of Hartford would end up divesting the South Africa–related investments.
The Advocate was sold in 1999 to the daily Hartford Courant. The forward of Polman's book, Dateline: Connecticut, notes that he was denied permission by New Mass Media Inc. to include samples from "Subject to Change," the column he wrote weekly for the Hartford Advocate.
The Fairfield County Weekly
The Fairfield County Weekly is published in Bridgeport, ConnecticutBridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
and distributed throughout Fairfield County
Fairfield County, Connecticut
Fairfield County is a county located in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The county population is 916,829 according to the 2010 Census. There are currently 1,465 people per square mile in the county. It is the most populous county in the State of Connecticut and contains...
with a circulation of about 30,000.
Valley Advocate
Advocate Weekly Newspapers formerly published the Valley Advocate, a similar alternative weekly, in Easthampton, MassachusettsEasthampton, Massachusetts
Easthampton is the second largest city in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is on the southeastern edge of an area called the Pioneer Valley near the five colleges in the college towns of Northampton and Amherst, MA...
, covering the greater Springfield
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is the most populous city in Western New England, and the seat of Hampden County, Massachusetts, United States. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers; the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern...
area and the Pioneer Valley
Pioneer Valley
The Pioneer Valley is the colloquial name for the U.S. Commonwealth of Massachusetts's portion of the Connecticut River Valley. The Pioneer Valley consists of three counties in Massachusetts which collectively feature much of New England's most fertile farmland...
of Western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts
Western Massachusetts is a loosely defined geographical region of the U.S. state of Massachusetts which contains the Berkshires, the Pioneer Valley, and some or all of the Swift River Valley. The region is always considered to include Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden counties, and the...
. It began as an independent newspaper in 1973 and was sold in late 2007 to Newspapers of New England
Newspapers of New England
Newspapers of New England Inc. is a privately-owned publisher of seven daily and weekly newspapers in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.The company's flagship publication is the Concord Monitor, in New Hampshire's capital...
, parent of its competitor the Daily Hampshire Gazette
Daily Hampshire Gazette
The Daily Hampshire Gazette is a six-day morning daily newspaper based in Northampton, Massachusetts, and covering all of Hampshire County and southern towns of Franklin County, Massachusetts...
of Northampton, Massachusetts
Northampton, Massachusetts
The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of Northampton's central neighborhoods, was 28,549...
.
Advocate/Weekly Papers Online
The Advocate/Weekly Papers can be found online at hartfordadvocate.com (Hartford Advocate), newhavenadvocate.com (New Haven Advocate) and fairfieldweekly.com (Fairfield County Weekly).The Valley's website is valleyadvocate.com.