New York World-Telegram
Encyclopedia
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
newspaper from 1931 to 1966.
History
The World-Telegram was formed in 1931, following the sale of the New York WorldNew York World
The New York World was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers...
by the heirs of Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
to Scripps Howard, owners of the Evening Telegram since 1927. (The Telegram was originally founded in 1867 by James Gordon Bennett, Jr.
James Gordon Bennett, Jr.
James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett, Sr., who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father....
, publisher of the morning New York Herald
New York Herald
The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...
.(12 February 1927). The Telegram Sold to Scripps-Howard, 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...
) More than 2,000 employees of the morning, evening and Sunday editions of the World lost their jobs in the merger, although some star writers, like Heywood Broun
Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun, Jr. was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, now known as The Newspaper Guild. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and...
and Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
, were kept on the new paper.
The World-Telegram enjoyed a reputation as a liberal paper for some years after the merger, based on memories of the Pulitzer-owned World. However, under Scripps Howard the paper moved steadily to the right, eventually becoming a conservative bastion.
In 1950, the World-Telegram acquired the remnants of another afternoon paper, the New York Sun
New York Sun (historical)
The Sun was a New York newspaper that was published from 1833 until 1950. It was considered a serious paper, like the city's two more successful broadsheets, The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune...
, to become the New York World-Telegram and Sun. (The writer A.J. Liebling once described the "and Sun" portion of the combined publication's masthead as resembling the tail feathers of a canary on the chin of a cat.)
Early in 1966, a proposal to create New York's first joint operating agreement led to the merger of the World-Telegram and Sun with Hearst's Journal American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
. The intention was to produce a joint afternoon edition, with a separate morning paper to be produced by the Herald Tribune
New York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
. The last edition of the World-Telegram and Sun was published on April 23, 1966. But when strikes prevented the JOA from taking effect, the papers instead united in August 1966 to become the short-lived New York World-Journal-Tribune
New York World Journal Tribune
The New York World Journal Tribune, also known as the World-Journal-Tribune, was a newspaper published in New York City from September 1966 until May 1967...
, which was nicknamed "The Widget."
The World-Journal-Tribune lasted only until May 5, 1967. Its closure left New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
with three daily newspapers: 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...
, the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
and the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
.