The Bristol Herald Courier is a 39,000 circulation daily newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 owned by Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

-based Media General, Inc

Media General

Media General, Inc. is a media company based in the Southeastern United States. Its major properties include newspapers such as The Tampa Tribune, the Winston-Salem Journal, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as well as numerous television stations, such as flagship station WFLA-TV.The company was...

. The newspaper is located in Bristol, Virginia

Bristol, Virginia

Bristol is an independent city in Virginia, United States, bounded by Washington County, Virginia, Bristol, Tennessee, and Sullivan County, Tennessee....

, a small city located in Southwest Virginia on the Tennessee border.

The Herald Courier is in what the media industry calls a converged newsroom, meaning its online (www.tricities.com) print (Herald Courier) and broadcast (WJHL-Johnson City

WJHL-TV

WJHL-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Tri-Cities area of Northeastern Tennessee and Southwestern Virginia that's licensed to Johnson City, Tennessee. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 11 from a transmitter on the southwest slope of Holston High Point...

) operations work together closely. Herald Courier reporters are trained to occasionally deliver webcasts of Bristol news, conduct TV "talk-backs" with WJHL and gather audio for daily stories. News Channel 11 reporters often have bylined stories that appear in the Herald Courier news pages. Both operations provide content for TriCities.com

TriCities.com

TriCities.com is an online source for news and information in the Tri-Cities area of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia...

, a subsidiary of Media General's Digital Media Department.

In 2010, the Herald Courier won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

Pulitzer Prize for Public Service

The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service has been awarded since 1918 for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper or news site through the use of its journalistic resources. Those resources, as well as reporting, may include editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics,...

, the highest honor in American journalism, for "illuminating the murky mismanagement of natural-gas royalties owed to thousands of land owners in southwest Virginia, spurring remedial action by state lawmakers."

History

The beginning of the present Bristol Herald Courier came in 1865. That was the year John Slack founded the Bristol News, a publication which continued until after the turn of the century. In 1870, Slack launched the Bristol Courier, a weekly which became Bristol's first daily paper in 1888.
George L. Carter, founder of the Clinchfield Railroad, moved to Bristol in 1903 and founded the Bristol Herald. When Carter left Bristol in 1907 the Herald was combined with the Courier and became the Bristol Herald Courier.

On October 16, 1949, T. Eugene Worrell and a number of the city's leading businessmen launched the Bristol Virginia-Tennessean, first published in direct competition with the Herald Courier and the evening News Bulletin. After many months of intense rivalry, the Herald Courier and Virginia-Tennessean joined in a printing agreement allowing both to carry on competitively in news and editorial fields while enjoying economies afforded by joint operations.

In 1986, after 36 years of home deliveries, the Bristol Virginia-Tennessean succumbed to the trend of dying afternoon newspapers and was combined with the morning editions of the Bristol Herald Courier. The combined morning publication with three editions covered and circulated in nine Southwest Virginia counties, Upper East Tennessee and the City of Bristol.

January 1, 1998 marked the sale of the Bristol Herald Courier to Media General.

Newsroom staff

The Bristol Herald Courier is located at 320 Bob Morrison Blvd in Bristol, Va. The BHC is the dominant news source for the Bristol and Southwest Virginia region and in 2008 and 2009 won five national journalism awards, including four from the Associated Press Sports Editors and one from the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. The paper was a 2007 national finalist for online convergence by the Associated Press Managing Editors. Staff biographies are at http://www.tricities.com/tri/tools/site_information/contacts/meet_the_staff_bhc/. On September 14, 2009, Sports Editor Jim Cnockaert was convicted of child pornography.

Editors

• J. Todd Foster

Managing Editor

• Susan Cameron

City Editor

• Christine Uthoff

Assistant City Editor

• Jan Patrick

Features Editor

• Jim Sacco

Sports Editor

• Suzanne Tate

Opinion Page Editor

• Jerry Shell

Copy Desk Supervisor

• John Hudson

Copy Editor

• Bill McKee

Copy Editor/Chief Photo Editor

TriCities.com Staff

• Heather Provencher - Director of Digital Media
• Eddie Jenkins - Content Coordinator

Reporters

• David McGee

Reporter

• Daniel Gilbert

Reporter

• Michael L. Owens

Reporter

• Debra McCown

Reporter

• Mac McLean

Reporter

• Jennifer Estep

Features Writer

• Joe Tennis

Features Writer

• Tim Hayes

Sports Writer

• Allen Gregory

Sports Writer

• Nate Hubbard

Sports Writer

• Ryan Roorda

Lead Sports Designer

Photography

• David Crigger

Chief Photographer

• Andre Teague

Photographer

• Earl Neikirk

Photographer

• Bill McKee

Pre-Press Tech