CURRENTS
Old News
How Three Papers Count the Years
To the casual reader, three newspapers seem to bill themselves as the nation's oldest. Can they all be right? CJR investigates.
Hartford Courant
Claim: America's Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper
Evidence: The operative word is "continuously." The Courant started as a weekly newspaper in 1764 and had the largest circulation of any newspaper in the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. After the British burned down its paper mill, the Courant printed a few issues on wrapping paper while a new mill was being built. It went daily in 1837.
Verdict: The most seamless continuity CJR could find.
New York Post
Claim: America's Oldest Continuously Published Daily Newspaper
Evidence: The operative word is "daily" (which Lachlan Murdoch sometimes forgets to mention). It was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the treasury, surviving in spite of periods of near financial collapse, predictions that it would go under, and a long 1962-63 New York newspaper strike.
Verdict: As long as the Post uses "daily" in its claim, it is accurate.
The New Hampshire Gazette
Claim: The Nation's Oldest Newspaper™
Evidence: Founded in Portsmouth in 1756. Many history texts refer to it as the oldest newspaper in the country, even though it was discontinued in 1861 for about two years. In 1960 the Gazette was merged with the Portsmouth Herald, which looked like the end of the Gazette since the Herald didn't alter its name. But the Herald's masthead stated "Continuing the New Hampshire Gazette," and in 1989 the Gazette regained its independence. During the next ten years, it was published episodically, with a press run of only a few hundred copies, notes the Gazette, in a recent history column. In 1999 the paper went biweekly.
Verdict: The Gazette doesn't use "continuous" in its claim, which is proper. But two newspapers in Maryland and Virginia, both named Gazette, started earlier and remain in existence today, although both ceased publication on several occasions. The Maryland Gazette was begun as a weekly in 1727 by "America's oldest publishing company" and is now published twice a week, while The Virginia Gazette published its first edition in 1736 and called itself "America's oldest weekly" until it also went to twice-weekly publication in 1984. CJR couldn't find a newspaper claiming to be "America's oldest twice-weekly newspaper."
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