Type Daily newspaper Publisher William F. Lucey Founded 1846 | Format Broadsheet Editor Sheila L. Mullowney | |
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Owner(s) Edward A. Sherman Publishing Co. | ||
The Newport Daily News is an independent six-day daily newspaper serving Newport County, Rhode Island. It publishes in the mornings on weekdays (Monday through Friday) and in the morning on Saturdays. The Daily News is the state's largest family-owned newspaper.
Contents
History
The Daily News has been locally owned since it was founded in 1846. It was named Newspaper of the Year by the New England Newspaper Association in 1991, 2001 and 2004.
Sherman Publishing
Edward A. Sherman Publishing Company, the family-owned publisher of the Daily News, also prints three free weekly newspapers in southern Rhode Island: Mercury, a Wednesday alternative weekly covering Bristol, Newport and Washington counties; the Friday Newport Navlog, the U.S. Navy's oldest base newspaper (founded 1901), covering Naval Station Newport; and Ocean State Independent, mailed to non-Daily News subscribers on Aquidneck Island.
Newport Mercury
The Mercury, another publication of the Daily News, traces a lineage as one the oldest newspapers in the country. The history of that publication dates back to 1758, when the widow and son of James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's brother, established the Newport Mercury as a weekly publication, making Ann Franklin the first woman in the Colonies to publish and edit a newspaper.
The Mercury was published regularly up to the time the British landed in Newport, when the press and types were buried. (The press, also used by Solomon Southwick to print copies of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, can be seen in the Museum of Newport History in downtown Newport.) After the Revolutionary War, the Mercury was issued again.
The Mercury was the first paper to publish poetry by an African American woman, Phillis Wheatley.
The Mercury was acquired by Edward A. Sherman, owner of the Newport Daily News in 1928. It continued as a subscription weekly published by the Newport Daily News until March 2005, when it was relaunched as a free alternative newsweekly.
Since the Mercury ceased publication during the Revolutionary War, and was acquired by Sherman in 1928, Hartford Courant and the Mercury's publisher have a longstanding debate over which is older. The Courant has long identified itself as the longest "continuously published" newspaper in the United States.
Prices
The Newport Daily News prices are: $1.00 Monday-Saturday.