Type Daily newspaper Owner(s) The McClatchy Company Editor Jim Witt | Format Broadsheet Publisher Gary Wortel | |
Founded 1906 (as Fort Worth Star) | ||
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is a U.S. daily newspaper serving Fort Worth and the western half of the North Texas area known as the Metroplex. Its area of domination is checked by its main rival, The Dallas Morning News, which is published in the eastern half of the Metroplex. It is owned by The McClatchy Company.
Contents
History
In May 1905, Amon G. Carter accepted a job as an advertising space salesman in Fort Worth. A few months later, he agreed to help finance and run a new newspaper in town. The Fort Worth Star printed its first newspaper on February 1, 1906, with Carter as the advertising manager.
The Star lost money, and was in danger of going bankrupt when Carter had an audacious idea: raise additional money and purchase his newspaper's main competition, the Fort Worth Telegram. In November 1908, the Star purchased the Telegram for $100,000, and the two newspapers combined on January 1, 1909, into the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
From 1923 until after World War II, the Star-Telegram was distributed over one of the largest circulation areas of any newspaper in the South, serving not just Fort Worth but also West Texas, New Mexico, and western Oklahoma. The newspaper created WBAP in 1922 and Texas' first television station, WBAP-TV, in 1948.
Market
The Star-Telegram’s circulation area is the Fort Worth/Arlington metro area (four counties) and 14 surrounding counties. The newspaper's primary market is the four-county Fort Worth/Arlington metro area, as well as the Dallas and Fort Worth suburb of Grand Prairie. The Fort Worth/Arlington metro area is the western part of the fourth-largest U.S. metropolitan area, the Dallas/Fort Worth/Arlington Combined Statistical Area. Fort Worth/Arlington ranks 29th most populous as a metro area.
Pulitzer prizes
Online presence
The Star-Telegram is the nation's oldest continuously operating online newspaper. StarText, an ASCII-based service, was started in 1982 and eventually integrated into the paper's current website.