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{{short description|Daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, US}}
{{NPOV}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}


{{Infobox newspaper
]
| name = Houston Chronicle
| image = ]
| caption = Front page of the ''Houston Chronicle''
| type = Daily ]
| format = ]
| foundation = {{Start date and age|1901}}
| headquarters = Houston Chronicle Building, 4747 Southwest Fwy., ] 77027
| publishing_country = United States
| editor = Kelly Ann Scott
| publisher = Nancy Meyer
| circulation = 142,785
| circulation_date = 2023
| circulation_ref = <ref>{{Cite web |title=2023 Texas Newspaper Directory |url=https://publisher.etype.services/The-Texas-Newspaper-Directory/e-paper-regular-edition/EEA520B114811333 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230503044946/https://publisher.etype.services/The-Texas-Newspaper-Directory/e-paper-regular-edition/EEA520B114811333 |archive-date=May 3, 2023 |access-date=May 3, 2023 |website=Texas Press Association}}</ref>
| website = {{URL|HoustonChronicle.com}}
| ISSN = 1074-7109
| oclc = 30348909
| owner = ]
}}


The '''''Houston Chronicle''''' is the largest daily newspaper in ], United States. {{As of|2016|04|post=,}} it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only '']'' and the '']''. With the 1995 buyout of its longtime rival the '']'', the ''Chronicle'' became Houston's ].
The '''''Houston Chronicle''''' is a daily ] in ], ]. It is one of the 10 largest newspapers in the United States, with a daily ] of more than 549,300. With the demise of its long-time rival the ''Houston Post'', its nearest major competitors are located in Dallas-Fort Worth. It is the largest daily paper owned and operated by the ], a ] corporate ] with $4 billion in revenues. The paper employs nearly 2,000 people, including approximately 300 ], ], and ]. The Chronicle has bureaus in ], ], ], ], ], ], ] and the ]. Its web site averages 25 million hits per month. The paper is currently the subject of multiple boycott efforts including by a Houston radio station and the Houston Republican Party over allegations of a liberal political bias.

The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper owned and operated by the ], a ] ] corporate ] with $10 billion in revenues. The paper employs nearly 2,000 people, including approximately 300 ], ], and ]. The ''Chronicle'' has bureaus in ], and ]. The paper reports that its web site averages 125 million page views per month.<ref>{{cite news |title=Web Services |url=http://marketing.chron.com/services/web_mobile |newspaper=Houston Chronicle |access-date=January 25, 2017}}</ref>

The publication serves as the "]" of the Houston area.<ref>Stolzenberg, Lisa, and Stewart J. D'Alessio (criminal justice professors from ] School of Policy and Management). "". (.) '']''. ], January 1, 2004. Volume 94, Issue 2 (Winter), Article 4. Retrieved on May 15, 2015. Posted by ]/]. pp. 351–380. {{JSTOR|3491373}}. at ]. CITED: p. 364. "The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the newspaper of record for Houston and has the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the city."</ref> Previously headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building at 801 Texas Avenue, ], the ''Houston Chronicle'' is now located at 4747 ].<ref>"". ]. Retrieved on February 7, 2016. "4747 Southwest Fwy. Houston, TX 77027"</ref>

While Houston Chronicle staff formerly published on the ad-supported, non-subscriber site Chron.com, today Chron and Houston Chronicle have separate websites and newsrooms.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.chron.com/about/|title=Chron About Us |date=2024-08-18 |accessdate=2024-08-08}}</ref> Houstonchronicle.com, launched in 2012, is a subscriber-only site that contains everything found in the daily print edition.<ref>{{cite news |last1=O'Laughlin |first1=John |title=Letter to our readers announcing HoustonChronicle.com |url=https://www.chron.com/news/article/Letter-to-our-readers-4046742.php |access-date=December 22, 2018 |work=Chron |date=November 18, 2012}}</ref>


==History== ==History==
]

From its inception, the practices and policies of the ''Houston Chronicle'' were shaped by strong-willed personalities who were the publishers. The history of the newspaper can be best understood when divided into the eras of these individuals.

===1901–1926: Marcellus E. Foster era===
The ''Houston Chronicle'' was founded in 1901 by a former reporter for the now-defunct '']'', Marcellus E. Foster. Foster, who had been covering the ] oil boom for the ''Post'', invested in Spindletop and took $30 of the return on that investment—at the time equivalent to a week's wages—and used it to fund the ''Chronicle''.

The ''Chronicle''{{'}}s first edition was published on October 14, 1901, and sold for two cents per copy, at a time when most papers sold for five cents each. At the end of its first month in operation, the ''Chronicle'' had a circulation of 4,378—roughly one tenth of the population of Houston at the time.<ref name="tsha"> ''Houston Chronicle''. Retrieved December 2, 2009.</ref> Within the first year of operation, the paper purchased and consolidated the ''Daily Herald''.


In 1908, Foster asked Jesse H. Jones, a local businessman and prominent builder, to construct a new office and plant for the paper, "and offered half-interest in the newspaper as a down payment, with twenty years to pay the remainder. Jones agreed, and the resulting Chronicle Building was one of the finest in the South."<ref name="tsha"/><ref>{{cite book |title=Jesse H. Jones, the Man and the Statesman |first=Bascom Nolly |last=Timmons |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=London |year=1956 |isbn=978-0-8371-7925-4 |page=77}}</ref>
===1901: Marcellus E. Foster===
The ''Houston Chronicle'' was founded in ] by a former reporter for the now-defunct '']'', ]. Foster, who had been covering the ] oil boom for the Post, invested in Spindletop and took $30 of the return on that investment &mdash; at the time equivalent to a week's wages &mdash; and used it to found the Chronicle.


Under Foster, the paper's circulation grew from about 7,000 in 1901 to 75,000 on weekdays and 85,000 on Sundays by 1926. Foster continued to write columns under the pen name ''Mefo'', and drew much attention in the 1920s for his opposition to the ] (KKK). He sold the rest of his interest to ] on June 26, 1926, and promptly retired.<ref>Handbook of Texas Online. ". Retrieved March 26, 2010.</ref>
The Chronicle's first edition was published on ], ] and sold for two cents per copy, at a time when most papers sold for five cents each. At the end of its first month in operation, the Chronicle had a circulation of 4,378 &mdash; roughly one tenth of the population of Houston at the time. Within the first year of operation, the paper purchased and consolidated the ''Daily Herald''.


===Goodfellows=== ===Goodfellows===
." ''Houston Chronicle''. October 14, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2010. The image is not from the J. R. Gonzalez article, but the depicts the same building that is seen in the illustration.</ref>]]
In ], City Editor George Kepple started . On a ] in 1911, Kepple passed a hat among the Chronicle's reporters to collect money to buy toys for a shoe-shine boy. Goodfellows continues today through donations made by the newspaper and its readers. It has grown into a city-wide program that provides needy children between the ages of two and ten with toys during the ]. In ], Goodfellows distributed almost 250,000 toys to more than 100,000 needy children in the ].


In 1911, city editor George Kepple started Goodfellows.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.houstonchronicle.com/project_discovery/ |title=Home |website=Houston Chronicle}}</ref> On ] 1911, Kepple passed a hat among the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s reporters to collect money to buy toys for a shoe-shine boy.
===1926: Jesse H. Jones===
In ], ] became the sole owner of the paper.
In ], the Chronicle set a Texas newspaper circulation record.
In ], the business pages &mdash; which up until then had been combined with sports &mdash; became its own section of the newspaper.


Goodfellows continues today through donations made by the newspaper and its readers. It has grown into a citywide program that provides needy children between the ages of two and ten with toys during the ]. In 2003, Goodfellows distributed almost 250,000 toys to more than 100,000 needy children in the ] area.
===1987: Hearst===
On ], ], the ] purchased the Houston Chronicle for $415 Million.
<!-- need more on the foundation that had owned the paper before -->
In ], the Chronicle switched to being a morning-only paper and is now this cities only major daily newspaper.


===1926–1956: Jesse H. Jones era===
== People ==
In 1926, ] became the sole owner of the paper. He had approached Foster about selling, and Foster had answered, "What will you give me?" Jones described the buyout of Foster as follows:
Jack Sweeney is the publisher and president of the ''Houston Chronicle''.
{{blockquote|text=Wanting to be liberal with Foster if I bought him out, since he had created the paper and originally owned most of the stock, and had made a success of it, I thought for a while before answering and finally asked him how much he owed. He replied, "On real estate and everything about 200,000 dollars." I then said to him that I would give him 300,000 dollars in cash, having in mind that this would pay his debts and give him 100,000 spending money. In addition, I would give him a note for 500,000 secured by a mortgage on the Chronicle Building, the note to be payable (interest and principal) at the rate of 35,000 a year for thirty-five years, which I figured was about his expectancy. I would also pay him 20,000 dollars a year as editor of the paper and 6,000 dollars a year to continue writing the daily front-page column, "MEFO", on the condition that either of us could cancel the editorship and/or the MEFO-column contracts on six months' notice, and that, if I canceled both the column and the editorship, I would give him an additional 6,000 dollars a year for life. I considered the offer substantially more than the ''Chronicle'' was worth at the time. No sooner had I finished stating my proposition than he said, "I will take it", and the transaction was completed accordingly.|sign=|source=pp.&nbsp;121–122 of ''Jesse H. Jones: The Man and the Statesman'' by ], copyright 1956 Henry Holt and Company}}


In 1937, Jesse H. Jones transferred ownership of the paper to the newly established ] Jones retained the title of publisher until his death in 1956.
As of ] ], the editorial board included
*President: Jack Sweeney
*Editorial Cartoonist: Clyde Peterson (aka C.P. Houston)
*Editorial Writer: Andrea Georgsson
*Viewpoints Editor: Judy Minshew
*Editorial Writer: Claudia Kolker
*Editorial Writer: Tim Fleck
*Executive Vice President and Editor: Jeff Cohen
*Editor (Opinion pages): James Howard Gibbons
*Outlook Editor: David Langworthy
*Assistant Outlook Editor: Vernoica Bucio
*Reader Feedback Representative: James T. Campbell


According to the '']'' online, the ''Chronicle'' generally represented very conservative political views during the 1950s:
The paper employs nearly 2,000 people, including approximately 300 ], ], and ]. In addition, the Chronicle contracts with multiple distributors who circulate and deliver copies of the newspaper.
<blockquote>... the ''Chronicle'' generally represented the very conservative political interests of the Houston business establishment. As such, it eschewed controversial political topics, such as integration or the impacts of rapid economic growth on life in the city. It did not perform investigative journalism. This resulted in a stodgy newspaper that failed to capture the interests of newcomers to the city. By 1959, circulation of the rival ''Houston Post'' had pulled ahead of the ''Chronicle''.<ref name="tsha"/></blockquote>


Jones, a lifelong ] who organized the ] to be in Houston in 1928, and who spent long years in public service first under the ], helping to found the Red Cross during World War I, and later famously under the Roosevelt administration, described the paper's mission in these terms:
===Awards===
*]: Houston's ] gave the Chronicle its '']'' for making the newspaper available at a "greatly reduced rate" to the hospital and its patients.
*]: awarded the Chronicle its "Guardian of the Human spirit" award. The presenter, Janis Goldstein, said the award was given because “They are honored today because the Houston Chronicle embraces the causes most dear to it with a depth and scope that goes well beyond what is expected.” and "the Chronicle gives of itself to build a community that will embrace tolerance, understanding, and diversity and will speak out against prejudice and unfairness of any kind."


<blockquote>I regard the publication of a newspaper as a distinct public trust, and one not to be treated lightly or abused for selfish purposes or to gratify selfish whims. A great daily newspaper can remain a power for good only so long as it is uninfluenced by unworthy motives, and unbought by the desire for gain. A newspaper which can be neither bought nor bullied is the greatest asset of a city or state. Naturally, a newspaper makes mistakes in judgment, as it does in type; but, so long as errors are honestly made, they are not serious when general results are considered.
'''Individual Awards''':
*]-]: Carlos Antonio Rios, a Chronicle photographer since ], has repeatedly been honored for his photojournalism by the ].
*]: James Howard Gibbons received 3rd place in the "Hearst Distinguished Journalism Awards," an internal contest held between Hearst's newspapers, for his editorial piece ''When Will the U.S. Liberate Texas?''
*]: White House correspondent ] was voted by readers of ] (a Washington, D.C. political blog) the tongue-in-cheek "Best to Sit Next to on the Bus (for more than 20 minutes)."
*Leon Hale, a long-time columnist and author of 11 books, recently received the ''Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career'' from the Texas Institute of Letters of which Hale is member.


The success or failure of a particular issue is of little consequence compared with the all-important principle of a fearless and honest newspaper. This I intend the ''Chronicle'' shall always be, a newspaper for all the people, democratic in fact and in principle, standing for the greatest good to the greatest number, championing and defending what it believes to be right, and condemning and opposing what it believes to be wrong.
'''Pulitzer Prize'''
''The Houston Chronicle'' is the only newspaper of the '10 largest' to have never won a ] for journalism.


Such have always been the policies of the ''Chronicle'' and to such it is now rededicated."<ref>Jesse H. Jones, ''The Man and the Statesman'', pp. 122–123</ref></blockquote>
However, reporters at the newspaper have several times been Pulitzer finalists, recently for international reporting:
*Dudley Althaus - ] finalist in international reporting for his articles on the causes of the ] epidemic in ] and ].
*Tony Freemantle - ] finalist in international reporting for his reporting from ], ], ] and ] on why crimes against humanity go unstopped and unpunished.


Under Jones' watch, the ''Chronicle'' bought ], one of Houston's oldest radio stations, in 1937. In 1954, Jones led a syndicate that signed on Houston's third television station, ].
'''Press Club of Houston'''
As the only publication with a circulation of 100,000 or greater papers in Houston, Chronicle has generally dominated the Press Club of Houston's annual journalism awards since the closing of the Houston Post. In 2000 the Chronicle suffered some embarrassment after the Press Club declined to issue a first place award for "Best Breaking News Coverage" by a major newspaper, despite being the lone candidate. According to the Press Club's awards judges, the Chronicle's entries did not demonstrate "extraordinary creativity in approach or execution or inspired reporting or exceptionally compelling writing" that was deserving of the first place award.


===1956–1965: John T. Jones era===
== Criticism ==
The board of Houston Endowment named John T. Jones, nephew of Jesse H. Jones, as editor of the ''Chronicle''. Houston Endowment president, J. Howard Creekmore, was named publisher. In 1961, John T. Jones hired ] as editor. Steven had previously been editor of the '']'' and the '']'', and credited with turning around the declining readership of both papers. One of his innovations was the creation of a regular help column called "Watchem", where ordinary citizens could voice their complaints. The '']'' later called this column a pioneer and prototype of the modern newspaper "Action Line".<ref name="ChiTrib">Heise, Kenan. "W. P. Steven, Ex-newspaper Executive." '']''. August 11, 1991. Retrieved October 5, 2011.</ref>
{{SectNPOV}}
On the political right, the paper's main critics are ] ] stations including ] radio and an affiliated ] entitled ''Chronically Biased''. The paper's editorial page is often a target for ] and derision in Houston's political circles for what critics perceive as an overbearing habit of promoting ] transit. ''Chronically Biased'' features a cartoon character named "Captain Chronicle" who espouses light rail transit as the solution to all of Houston's problems including those unrelated to traffic.


Steven's progressive political philosophy soon created conflict with the very conservative views of the Houston Endowment board, especially when he editorially supported the election of ], the Democratic candidate for president. However, more than political philosophy was involved: Robert A. Caro revealed in his biography of Johnson that written assurance of this support from John T. Jones had been the price demanded by Johnson in January 1964 in return for approval of the merger of Houston's National Bank of Commerce, in which Jones had a financial interest, with another Houston bank, the Texas National.{{sfn|Caro|2012|pages=523–527}}
In May of 2005 the ] ] joined a boycott of the newspaper, which had previously been espoused by KSEV hosts. The Republican Party accused the paper of having a liberal political slant, of biased coverage of the light rail project, of supporting Planned Parenthood and of waging a "personal smear campaign" against Houston congressman ].


In 1964, the ''Chronicle'' purchased the assets of its evening newspaper competitor, the ''Houston Press'',<ref name="tsha"/> becoming the only evening newspaper in the city. By then, the ''Chronicle'' had a circulation of 254,000—the largest of any paper in Texas. The ''Atlantic Monthly'' credited the growth to the changes instigated by Steven.<ref name = "Atlantic">Bagdikian, Ben H. . ''Atlantic Monthly''. August 1966. Retrieved March 25, 2010.</ref>
The newspaper also has critics on the political left. The ''Houston Press'', an alternative weekly paper that often takes a ] perspective, frequently runs a column entitled "News Hostage", which critiques the Chronicle.


In the summer of 1965, Jones decided to buy a local television station that was already owned by the Houston Endowment. He resigned from the Houston Endowment board to avoid a conflict of interest, though he remained as publisher of the ''Chronicle''. On September 2, 1965, Jones made a late-night visit to the Steven home, where he broke the news that the Endowment board had ordered him to dismiss Steven. Jones had to comply. On September 3, the paper published a story announcing that Everett Collier was now the new editor.<ref name = "Atlantic" />
===Light Rail memorandum controversy ===


No mention was made of Steven or the Houston Endowment board. ''Houston Post'' staff wrote an article about the change, but top management killed it. Only two weekly papers in Houston mentioned it: ''Forward Times'' (which targeted the African-American community) and the ''Houston Tribune'' (an ultra-conservative paper). Both papers had rather small circulations and no influence among the city's business community.<ref name = "Atlantic" /> The two major newspapers in Houston never mentioned Steven for many years thereafter.
In late ], Chronicle website managers accidentally posted an internal ] to ]s on its home site, . The memorandum outlined a draft agenda of coordinated news articles, editorials, and op-eds to be published by the paper, seemingly to promote a hotly contested ] ] to expand Houston's controversial ] system on the ] ballot, which was later approved narrowly by voters. The memo's anonymous author suggested in part:


===1965–1987: J. Howard Creekmore era===
:"I propose a series of editorials, editorial cartoons and Sounding Board columns leading up to the rail referendum, with this specific objective: Continuing our long standing efforts to make rail a permanent part of the transit mix here. The timing, language and approach of the paper's editorials would, of course, be the decision of the Editorial Board. But I suggest that they could be built upon and informed by a news-feature package with an equally specific focus"
John J. Jones left the ''Chronicle'' not long after Steven's ouster. J. Howard Creekmore, president of the Houston Endowment, took John Jones' place at the ''Chronicle''. Everett D. Collier replaced Steven as editor. Collier remained in this position until his retirement in 1979.


J. Howard Creekmore was born in Abilene, Texas, in 1905. His parents died while he was young, so he was raised by his stepmother. The family moved to Houston in 1920. Howard enrolled in Rice Institute, where he graduated with degrees in history and English. After graduation, he went to work for Jesse Jones as a bookkeeper. Jones took an interest in the young man's career, and put him through law school. Creekmore passed the bar exam in 1932 and returned to work for Jones. He held several positions in the Jones business empire. In 1959, he was named to the board of Houston Endowment, and was promoted to president of the board in 1964.<ref>Ackerman, Todd. " ''Houston Chronicle''. October 12, 2001. Retrieved May 11, 2010.</ref>
The memorandum then proposed several "investigative" news stories and editorials designed to examine "the campaign led by ] and ] to defeat rail expansion." DeLay, a Houston congressman, and Lanier, a former mayor of Houston, had both actively opposed light rail in the past.


By 1965, Creekmore had persuaded other directors of Houston Endowment to sell several business properties, including the ''Chronicle''. Houston oilman John Mecom offered $85 million for the newspaper, its building, a 30 percent interest in Texas National Bank of Commerce, and the historic Rice Hotel. Early in 1966, Mecom encountered problems raising the additional cash to complete the transaction. He then began lining up potential buyers for the newspaper, which included non-Houstonians such as Sam Newhouse, Otis Chandler and the Scripps-Howard organization. Creekmore strongly believed that local persons should own the paper. He insisted that Mecom pay the $84 million debt immediately in cash. Mecom cancelled his purchase agreement.<ref>''Time''. "Newspapers: A Deal Done In" June 17, 1966. Retrieved May 10, 2010.</ref>
The document was online for only an hour, but long enough to be viewed by some readers. Two days later the ''Houston Review'', a conservative student publication, published the memo's full text and an accompanying commentary that criticized the paper for bias toward rail. The ''Houston Press'', which is sometimes accused of a liberal slant, also accused the Chronicle of having a bias toward rail. They dubbed the paper Houston's "in-house light rail newsletter," described it as a "tireless promoter of rail," and mocked its editorial board's portrayal of light rail as the key to making Houston a "world class" city &mdash; a claim echoed by the city's former mayor, Lee Brown, who campaigned on a platform of bringing light rail to Houston. Other local weekly and monthly newspapers, including the ''Houston Forward Times'', a local ] weekly newspaper, seized on the controversy, as did local ] stations, ], and the conservative ] Internet forum.


In 1968, the ''Chronicle'' set a Texas newspaper circulation record.
The Chronicle's response was notably muted. Its only official response appeared in the "corrections" section later the same week stating: "An internal Houston Chronicle document was mistakenly posted to the editorial/opinion area of the Web site early Thursday morning. We apologize for any confusion it may have caused."
In 1981, the business pages—which until then had been combined with sports—became its own section of the newspaper. Creekmore remained as publisher until Houston Endowment sold the paper to the Hearst Corporation.


===1987–present: Hearst Corporation era===
Later, the ''Houston Press'' tracked down Chronicle editor ], who gave a statement in defense of the memorandum: "I make no apologies for having a thorough discussion of the issue. We have nothing to apologize for&#8230;There was an inadvertent posting of it to the Web site, and I'm sorry about that, but I make no apologies for the contents of it."
On May 1, 1987, the ] purchased the ''Houston Chronicle'' from Houston Endowment for $415 million.<ref>''Houston Chronicle'' Archives, "Houston Chronicle purchase completed by Hearst Corp." May 1, 1987.</ref>
<!-- need more on the foundation that had owned the paper before -->
Richard J. V. Johnson, who had joined the paper as a copy editor in 1956, and worked up to executive vice president in 1972, and president in 1973, remained as chairman and publisher until he retired on April 1, 2002.<ref> {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120724120419/http://www.aaf-houston.org/en/art/21/ |date=July 24, 2012 }}. American Advertising Federation Houston. January 19, 2006. Retrieved December 2, 2009.</ref> He was succeeded by Jack Sweeney.


In 1994, the ''Chronicle'' switched to being a morning-only paper. With the demise of the ''Houston Post'' on April 18 the next year, the ''Chronicle'' became Houston's sole major daily newspaper.
In subsequent weeks several Houston bloggers reported writing letters to the editor about the memorandum, though none were ever published <!-- KSEV Radio Broadcasts, AM 700, Houston, Texas November and December 2002-->.


On October 18, 2008, the paper endorsed Senator ] for ] in the ], the first Democrat to be endorsed by the newspaper since 1964, when it endorsed Texan Lyndon B. Johnson.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/6065490.html |title=The presidential ticket |date=October 18, 2008 |work=Houston Chronicle |access-date=July 26, 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://blogs.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/10/houston_chronicle_endorses_oba.html |title=''Houston Chronicle'' endorses Obama over McCain – the first time the ''Chron'' has picked a Democrat since LBJ in 1964 |work=Houston Chronicle |type=Blog |first=Richard |last=Dunham |date=October 19, 2008 |access-date=July 26, 2010}}</ref> It endorsed ] in 2012,<ref>{{cite news |title=Romney for president |url=http://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Romney-for-president-3965675.php |access-date=July 30, 2016 |work=Houston Chronicle |date=October 21, 2012}}</ref> but endorsed ] in 2016,<ref>{{cite news |title=These are unsettling times that require a steady hand|url=http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/For-Hillary-Clinton-8650345.php |access-date=July 30, 2016 |work=Houston Chronicle |date=July 29, 2016}}</ref> and ] in 2020.<ref>{{cite news |title=We recommend Joe Biden for president|url=https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/endorsement-Joe-Biden-president-us-election-2020-15636598.php
Consistent with the memorandum's stated "specific objective" , the Chronicle editorial page remained a vocal public advocate of the METROrail referendum in late 2003 and repeatedly endorsed its adoption. According to a content analysis of the paper by the ''Houston Review'', the Chronicle published 5 editorials attacking rail opponents, 6 editorials promoting or endorsing light rail, 6 news stories attacking the motives of rail opponents, 3 news stories promoting a criminal investigation of rail opponents, and 1 staff editorial endorsing a criminal investigation of rail opponents during the course of the election. As the bond referendum approached rail critics argued that their fears of bias were confirmed by the paper, which they contend became a partisan participant in the campaign. During the campaign the Houston Chronicle made a request to ] (TTM), the main critic of METRORail, to provide the paper with a copy of their financial contributor reports. TTM declined to do so, indicating that they did not believe the Chronicle would objectively represent their position in light of the memorandum. Among the election-related stories proposed in the memorandum was a project labelled "Ground zero for November" that proposed stories negatively portraying the "funding" behind METRORail opponents.
|access-date=October 11, 2020 |work=Houston Chronicle |date=October 11, 2020}}</ref>


Locally, the ''Chronicle'' endorsed ] for governor in ],<ref>{{cite news |last1=Caruba |first1=Lauren |title=A Handy Guide to the Major Texas Newspaper Endorsements |url=http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/a-handy-guide-to-the-major-texas-newspaper-endorsements/ |access-date=July 30, 2016 |agency=Texas Monthly |date=November 4, 2014}}</ref> and ] for mayor in 2015.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sylvester Turner for mayor |url=http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/Sylvester-Turner-for-mayor-6564480.php |website=Houston Chronicle |access-date=October 11, 2015 |date=October 11, 2015}}</ref> Additionally, the ''Chronicle'' initially endorsed ] for the ]<ref>{{cite news |title=For Bush |url=http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/recommendations/article/For-Bush-6827621.php |access-date=July 30, 2016 |work=Houston Chronicle |date=February 12, 2016}}</ref> Republican primary, but did not endorse any other candidate after he dropped out.<ref>{{cite news |title=2016 Texas Primary Endorsements |url=http://www.chron.com/opinion/recommendations/article/Houston-Chronicle-2016-Texas-Primary-Endorsements-6827491.php#photo-9475977 |access-date=July 30, 2016 |agency=Houston Chronicle |date=February 29, 2016}}</ref>
After TTM refused the paper's request, Chronicle lawyers filed a criminal complaint under chapter 273 of the Texas Elections Code against TTM with ] District Attorney ] accusing them of fundraising improprieties. The complaint alleged that TTM had violated Texas statutes requiring ]s to make fundraising disclosures, a misdemeanor offense which, if true, is punishable by a $500 fine. The Chronicle argued that the statute applied to TTM's advertising slogan, "Metro's Rail Plan Costs Too Much, Does Too Little." However, TTM was registered as a non-profit ] organization rather than a ] (PAC) and thus not obliged to submit a PAC financial disclosure under state law. (The separate "Texans for True Mobility PAC" has regularly been in full compliance with disclousre requirements to the ].) Rosenthal dismissed the Chronicle's complaint, finding it without merit on the grounds that the allegedly violated statute did not apply to the case.


===2018 source-fabrication scandal===
Later that year, the group revealed that that their TV and radio ads were funded by $30,000 in contributions made the day before the election by two PACs controlled by DeLay. Rosenthal's involvement in the probe itself came under fire by the ], which in editorials questioned whether Rosenthal was too close to TTM on account of accepting approximately $30,000 in donations to his campaigns from TTM supporters. <!-- Ties That Bind? The D.A. shares something with those he's supposed to be probing: campaign support, Houston Press, January 15, 2004 -->
In September 2018, then-executive editor Nancy Barnes released a statement on the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s website notifying readers for the first time that the paper's Austin bureau chief, Mike Ward, had resigned and was the subject of an internal investigation after questions were raised by a staff member over fabricating sources.<ref name="apnews.com">{{cite web |title=Houston Chronicle reporter accused of faking sources resigns |url=https://apnews.com/cb263cd6b23a4f928382d5e2d009f384 |website=AP NEWS |date=September 11, 2018}}</ref> Barnes opted not to disclose the source-fabrication or Ward's resignation to ''Chronicle'' readers and the general public until she was contacted by reporters at other outlets pursuing a story about the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s scandal—one full week after Ward had resigned. By the time Barnes informed the public about what would turn into the biggest journalism scandal of 2018, it had already become one of the worst kept secrets in Austin among the capitol press corps that writes about Texas politicians. The scandal had also become popular fodder among staffers who work at the capital. Within 45 minutes of being contacted by a freelance reporter for the ''Texas Observer'', Barnes hastily issued a press release announcing that one of her reporters bad been caught making up sources over the course of several years. Barnes never explained why the ''Chronicle'' decided against being transparent to it readers immediately, instead of waiting for word to leak to the extent that other news outlets started planning stories.{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}


The sources being questioned in Ward's reporting were the product of "man-on-the-street" interviews from a story dealing with rebuilding efforts following ]. Barnes said ''Houston Chronicle'' researchers had problems finding a number of sources quoted in Ward's story, so the newspaper hired investigative journalist David Wood, a Pulitzer Prize winner.<ref name="David Wood of The Huffington Post">{{cite news |title=David Wood of The Huffington Post |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-wood |publisher=Pulitzer}}</ref>
By comparison with TTM, which was extensively attacked in the paper's editorials and covered in multiple news stories, the Chronicle devoted only a portion of one single article to the finances of ] (TPT), the main pro-METRORail group, according to the ''Houston Review''. The ''Houston Review'' further alleged multiple conflicts of interest in TPT's financing. The report involved fourteen METRORail contracters and business interests who stood to gain financially from the project and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote the referendum.


On November 8, 2018, one day before Barnes left for a position as senior vice president of news at National Public Radio, the ''Houston Chronicle'' released some of Wood's findings. The paper announced it was retracting a total of eight stories.<ref name="chron.com">{{cite news |title=A note from the editor of the Houston Chronicle |url=https://www.chron.com/local/article/A-note-from-the-editor-of-the-Houston-Chronicle-13218790.php |newspaper=Houston Chronicle}}</ref>
===Feud with KSEV===
In early ] the Chronicle was accused of bias and adding to the family's grief regarding its coverage of the death of Leroy Sandoval, a soldier from Houston who was killed in Iraq. Chronicle reporter Lucas Wall visited the family of Sandoval for an interview about the loss of their loved one.


Barnes later went on to tell ''Columbia Journalism Review'' that the widespread fabrication apparent in Ward's articles was unprecedented, in her experience: "I've been an editor a long time and I have never seen anything like this, period.".<ref name="cjr.org">{{cite magazine |title=Broken trust at the Houston Chronicle |url=https://www.cjr.org/analysis/houston-chronicle-mike-ward.php |magazine=Columbia Journalism Review}}</ref> None of the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s editors responsible for overseeing Ward's stories—including then-managing editor Vernon Loeb—assumed any responsibility for the fact that one of their reporters had been cheating for years under their noses. In many instances over the course of years, Loeb worked directly with Ward and even rewrote his stories for final publication.
After the article appeared Sandoval's family members complained that a sentence alleging "President Bush's failure to find weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq misrepresented their views on the war and President ] (the Sandoval family was supportive of the war). The next day Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station ] and explained that Wall had pressured them for a quotation that criticized Bush and then included the line alleging Bush's "failure" against the wishes of the family.


The ''Austin American Statesman'', where Ward worked as a reporter for 25 years covering the state's political class prior to joining the ''Houston Chronicle'' in 2014, also conducted an internal review of "his final years" of work at the paper.<ref name="statesman.com">{{cite news |title=Former Statesman reporter suspected of fabricating sources at Houston paper |url=https://www.statesman.com/news/20181109/former-statesman-reporter-suspected-of-fabricating-sources-at-houston-paper |newspaper=Austin American Statesman}}</ref>
A bitter on-air showdown ensued between the KSEV radio show host/owner ], and an assistant managing editor at the Chronicle, who defended his reporter's story. The incident prompted Patrick to join the call for a boycott of the paper. The story was also picked up by the local Houston television stations and, a week later, the ].The issue cooled down when Chronicle publisher Jack Sweeney contacted the Sandoval family to apologize. Patrick and O'Reilly have both been involved in subsequent disputes with the Chronicle over alleged biases and writings pertaining to each other.


A copy of the original story that led to the investigation has been removed from the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s website. But Austin-based NPR affiliate KUT interviewed Ward for the radio in the days after the story ran and still has the story posted on its website, despite the fact that the sources used in Ward's reporting are suspected of being fake.<ref name="kut.org">{{cite news |title=For Most Affected By Harvey, Anger At Government Has Subsided |url=https://www.kut.org/post/most-affected-harvey-anger-government-has-subsided |publisher=KUT}}</ref>
===Planned Parenthood Contributions===
The newspaper's objectivity on the issue of ] has also been called into question following revelations that the Chronicle makes several annual contributions to abortion provider ]. According to an investigation by the ''Houston Review'', an "independent, conservative, student-run journal of news and opinion", the Chronicle donated between $6,000 - $12,000 to Planned Parenthood over the period ] to ]. One of its executives, Richard J. V. Johnson (together with his wife), has also donated between $5,000 and $15,000 over the period ] to ]. The Chronicle additionally donated between $1,000 and $5,000 to Planned Parenthood in ] and is a member of the organization's employee donations program that matches dollar amounts contributed to the group by the paper's employees. .


==Headquarters==
According to the Texas Alliance for Life's Dr. Joe Pojman, this activity "calls into question the Chronicle&#8217;s professional objectivity when reporting on the abortion issue." The Texas Foundation for Life, another pro-life organization, has accused the paper of taking an excessively strong pro-abortion position in its editorials. The organization also contends that the paper has misrepresented the effects of legislation that removes state funding for abortion providers by relying heavily on Planned Parenthood sources for its articles.


===4747 Southwest Freeway===
The paper's support for Planned Parenthood has also been cited by KSEV radio and the Republican Party as a reason for their boycotts.
]'' headquarters]]
On July 21, 2014, the ''Chronicle'' announced that its Downtown employees were moving to the 610 Loop campus,<ref>{{cite news|author=Pulsinelli, Olivia|url=http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2014/07/houston-chronicle-to-move-downtown-employees-to.html|title=Houston Chronicle to move downtown employees to Southwest Freeway facility|newspaper=]|date=July 21, 2014|access-date=February 26, 2016}}</ref> at the intersection of the ] and ]/] (]).<ref name="MorenoLaVoz">{{cite news|author=Moreno, Jenalia|url=http://www.chron.com/business/article/Chronicle-buys-La-Voz-Spanish-newspaper-1972980.php|title=Chronicle buys La Voz Spanish newspaper|newspaper=Houston Chronicle|date=December 3, 2004|access-date=January 8, 2012}}</ref>


The facility, previously used as the '']'' headquarters, will have a total of seven buildings with a total of over {{convert|440000|sqft|sqm}} of space. The original building is a 1970s four-story "]" building.<ref name=TurnerGhosts>{{cite news|author=Turner, Allan|url=http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/The-Chronicle-leaves-the-ghosts-behind-at-801-6829385.php|title=The Chronicle leaves the ghosts behind at 801 Texas|newspaper=Houston Chronicle|date=February 13, 2016|access-date=February 26, 2016|quote="The new complex, formerly the home of the Houston Post, will provide more than 440,000 square feet in seven buildings.The plant at 4747 Southwest Freeway was acquired after the Post closed in 1995, and has for a number of years been the site of the Chronicle's production departments.}}</ref>
===Purchase of Houston Post Assets===
In ], the ''Houston Post'' ceased operations, leaving the Chronicle as Houston's only major daily newspaper, and the Hearst Corporation purchased some of the Post's assets. Houston Chronicle announced it in a way that suggested the shutdown and Hearst's purchase of the Post's assets were simultaneous events. "Post closes; Hearst buys assets," the Chronicle headline read the day after the Post was shut.


As of 2016, the building housed the ''Chronicle'' Production Department,<ref name=TurnerGhosts/> as well as the offices of the Spanish newspaper '']''.<ref name="MorenoLaVoz"/>
Internal memos obtained from by FOIA from the ] ] attorneys who investigated the closing of the ''Houston Post'' said the Chronicle's parent orgnaization struck a deal to buy the ''Post'' six months before it closed. The memos, first obtained by the alternative paper the ''Houston Press'', say the Chronicle's conglomerate and the ''Post'' "reached an agreement in October, 1994, for the sale of Houston Post Co.'s assets for approximately $120 million."


===801 Texas Avenue===
No anti-trust charges have been filed against the ''Houston Chronicle'', the ''Houston Post'' or against the Hearst corporation.
] before its demolition]]
The ''Houston Chronicle'' building{{citation needed|date=May 2013}} in ] was the headquarters of the ''Houston Chronicle''.<ref>"." ]. Retrieved May 5, 2013. "801 Texas Avenue Houston, TX 77002"</ref> The facility included a loading dock, office space, a press room, and production areas. It had ten stories above ground and three stories below ground. The printing presses used by the newspaper spanned three stories.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour6.html |title=Printing |access-date=January 27, 2011 |work=Houston Chronicle Tour |publisher=Houston Chronicle, Inc. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110603094505/http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour6.html |archive-date=June 3, 2011 }} ()</ref><!--Chron still utilizes ones in Southwest facility--> The presses were two stories below ground and one above. In the Downtown facility, the presses there were decommissioned in the late 2000s.{{citation needed|date=March 2012}} The newsroom within the facility had ] offices with a few private cubicles and offices on the edges.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour2.html |title=Newsroom |access-date=January 27, 2011 |work=Houston Chronicle Tour |publisher=Houston Chronicle, Inc. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416034609/http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour2.html |archive-date=April 16, 2008 }} ()</ref> The facility was connected to the downtown ].<ref name="tunnel-2021">{{cite web | url=https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/heights-news/article/Downtown-Houston-tunnels-unkind-to-wheelchair-1776733.php | title=Downtown Houston tunnels unkind to wheelchair users | work=Chron.com | date=August 18, 2008 | accessdate=July 22, 2021 | author=Murphy, Bill | quote=At the northern end of today's underground maze, the tunnels provide access to the Chase Tower, the Houston Chronicle and 717 Texas Avenue (formerly known as the Calpine Tower).}}</ref> Turner wrote that "in recent decades," 801 Texas Avenue "offered viewers an architectural visage of unadorned boxiness.... An accretion of five buildings made into one, it featured a maze of corridors, cul-de-sacs and steps that seemed to spring on strollers at the most unexpected times."<ref name=TurnerGhosts/>


The facility, which was 106 years old in 2016, was originally four separate structures, which were joined to make one building.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour1.html |title=Chronicle Building |access-date=January 27, 2011 |work=Houston Chronicle Tour |publisher=Houston Chronicle, Inc. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080203044850/http://www.chron.com/banners/i/insidestory/history/tour1.html |archive-date=February 3, 2008 }}</ref> ] erected the first ''Chronicle'' building, a long, narrow structure clad in granite, on the corner of Travis Street and Texas Avenue in 1910. The second building, the Majestic Theater, was built west of the ''Chronicle'' building. The second building built by Jones opened in 1910. In 1918, the third Jones building, Milam Building, opened west of the theater. An annex was built on the north side of the main building in 1938 and gained a fifth floor in the 1960s. The fifth building was a production plant, built north of the original four buildings. They were joined in a major renovation and modernization project, which was completed in the late 1960s.<ref name=TurnerGhosts/>
===Robert Jensen/September 11, 2001 controversy===
In the weeks following the ] terrorist attacks the ''Houston Chronicle'' attracted controversy by publishing a series of opinion articles by ] journalism professor ], blaming the United States for the tragedy. According to an article of Jensen's published by the Chronicle only three days after the attacks, "For more than five decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there is no other way to understand it except as terrorism." In a followup article Jensen continued, asserting "my anger is directed not only at individuals who engineered the Sept. 11 tragedy, but at those who have held power in the United States and have engineered attacks on civilians every bit as tragic." The decision to publish Jensen's articles so soon after the attacks produced allegations of insensitivity against the newspaper, which was said to be giving an unduly large audience to a position characterized as being extremist. In response to the ''Chronicle'' series, University of Texas president ] issued a response denouncing Jenson's as "a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy" and disavowing the professor's identification with the university, noting "e is not speaking in the University's name and may not speak in its name." The opinion piece resulted in hundreds of angry letters to the editor and reportedly over 4,000 angry responses to Jensen.


On April 25, 2017, it was imploded and reduced to rubble.<ref>{{cite news|author=Hlavaty, Craig|url=http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/The-old-Houston-Chronicle-building-is-officially-11096916.php|title=The old Houston Chronicle building is officially gone|newspaper=Houston Chronicle|date=April 25, 2017|access-date=August 16, 2017}}</ref> The site is now occupied by the Texas Tower.
Despite the public backlash, the ''Chronicle'' printed four subsequent opinion articles by Jensen, asserting his case. Jensen is also a regular guest writer on the opinion page and has published several dozen opinion articles on other subjects in the ''Chronicle.''


==External links== ==People==
===Awards===
*
*2000: Houston's ] gave the ''Chronicle'' its '']'' for making the newspaper available at a "greatly reduced rate" to the hospital and its patients.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www3.mdanderson.org/news/ainsworth.html|title=Mdanderson.org}}</ref>
*
*2002: ] awarded the ''Chronicle'' its "Guardian of the Human spirit" award. The presenter, Janis Goldstein, said the award was given "because the ''Houston Chronicle'' embraces the causes most dear to it with a depth and scope that goes well beyond what is expected." Also, that "the ''Chronicle'' gives of itself to build a community that will embrace tolerance, understanding, and diversity and will speak out against prejudice and unfairness of any kind."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hmh.org/article.asp?id=9|title=Holocaust Museum Houston|website=hmh.org}}</ref>


===Individual awards===
'''Links critical of the Chronicle:'''
* 1963: William Porterfield won an Ernie Pyle Award.<ref name ="Atlantic" />
* - Archives of a (no-longer published) Anti-Chronicle ]
* 1989–1997: Carlos Antonio Rios, a ''Chronicle'' photographer since 1978, has repeatedly been honored for his photojournalism by the ].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www-new.latinosandmedia.org/jawards/awards-nahj-year.html|title=New.latinosandmedia.org}}</ref>
* - ] affiliated with KSEV radio owner ]
* 2003: James Howard Gibbons received third place in the "Hearst Distinguished Journalism Awards", an internal contest held between Hearst's newspapers, for his editorial piece "When Will the U.S. Liberate Texas?"<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.hearstcorp.com/newspapers/property/news_distinguished.html |title=Hearstcorp.com |access-date=May 28, 2005 |archive-date=March 6, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050306132247/http://www.hearstcorp.com/newspapers/property/news_distinguished.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
* - media watchdog group (reportedly inactive since December, 2004)
* ], a long-time columnist and author of 11 books, recently received the Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career from the Texas Institute of Letters, of which Hale is a member.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.winedalebooks.com/books/hale.html|title=Winedale - Leon Hale|website=www.winedalebooks.com}}</ref>
* Jason Witmer won first place in the 48 Hour–Web category of the National Press Photographers Association's annual Best of Photojournalism in 2010 for his piece, "Too Manly for Quilt Show".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://bop.nppa.org/2010/tv_and_web_video/news_photography/winners/?cat=48W |title=BOP.nppa.org |access-date=March 6, 2010 |archive-date=October 21, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101021192731/http://bop.nppa.org/2010/tv_and_web_video/news_photography/winners/?cat=48W |url-status=dead }}</ref> Whitmer won second place in the News Feature–Web category for "Suddenly homeless in Houston".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://bop.nppa.org/2010/tv_and_web_video/news_photography/winners/index.php?cat=NFW&place=2nd&group= |title=BOP.nppa.org |access-date=March 6, 2010 |archive-date=May 10, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510101933/http://bop.nppa.org/2010/tv_and_web_video/news_photography/winners/index.php?cat=NFW&place=2nd&group= |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Pulitzer Prize===
* ]: ]. ], Michael Lindenberger, Joe Holley and Luis Carrasco
* ]: ]. Lisa Falkenberg — 2015 winner for commentary. "For vividly-written, groundbreaking columns about grand jury abuses that led to a wrongful conviction and uncovered other egregious problems in the legal and immigration systems."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2015|title=2015 Pulitzer Prizes|website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>

The newspaper and its staff have several times been Pulitzer finalists:
* Dudley Althaus – 1992 finalist in international reporting: "For his articles on the causes of the cholera epidemic in ] and ]."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1992|title=1992 Pulitzer Prizes |website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>
* Tony Freemantle – 1997 finalist in international reporting: "For his reporting from ], ], ] and ] on why crimes against humanity go unstopped and unpunished."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/1997|title=1997 Pulitzer Prizes|website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>
* ] – 2007 finalist for editorial cartooning: "For his pungent cartoons on an array of issues, and for his bold use of animation."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2007|title=2007 Pulitzer Prizes |website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref> Anderson won the Pulitzer in 2005 when working for ''The Courier-Journal'', Louisville, Kentucky.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2005|title=2005 Pulitzer Prizes|website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>
* Staff – 2009 finalist for breaking news coverage: "For taking full advantage of online technology and its newsroom expertise to become a lifeline to the city when ] struck, providing vital minute-by-minute updates on the storm, its flood surge and its aftermath."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2009|title=2009 Pulitzer Prizes |website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>
* Staff - 2017 finalist for public service. "For exposing the grave injustice of arbitrary cost-cutting by the State of Texas that denied tutoring, counseling and other vital special education services to families, hindering the futures of tens of thousands of children.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/houston-chronicle|title=The Pulitzer Prizes}}</ref>
* Joe Holley and Evan Mintz – 2017 finalist for editorial writing. "For editorials on gun laws, gun culture and gun tragedies that combined wit, eloquence and moral power in a fine brew of commonsense argumentation."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/joe-holley-and-evan-mintz|title=The Pulitzer Prizes}}</ref>
* Staff – 2018 finalist for breaking news. "For comprehensive and dynamic coverage of Hurricane Harvey that captured real-time developments of the unprecedented scale of the disaster and provided crucial information to its community during the storm and its aftermath."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/staff-houston-chronicle|title=Finalist: Staff of Houston Chronicle |website=www.pulitzer.org}}</ref>

===Other notable people===
* Fernando Dovalina Jr. (former assistant managing editor)
* ] (gossip columnist)
* ] (columnist)
* ] (sports writer)
* ] (automotive columnist)
* Ken Hammond (editor, Texas Magazine, Chronicle Sunday Edition)
* Sunny Nash (contributor, columnist, photographer, ])
* ] (influential ] editor)
* ], newspaper and radio journalist
* Alison Cook (James Beard Award-Winning Restaurant Critic)
* Joy Sewing, first Black columnist in the newspaper's history<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ahmed |first=Mariam |date=December 26, 2023 |title=Houston Chronicle taps Sewing as news columnist |url=https://talkingbiznews.com/media-moves/houston-chronicle-taps-sewing-as-news-columnist/ |access-date=December 27, 2023 |website=Talking Biz News |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Other publications==
In April 2004 the ''Houston Chronicle'' began carrying a Spanish-language supplement, the entertainment magazine '']''. ''La Vibra'' caters to speakers of Spanish and bilingual English-Spanish speakers, and is mainly distributed in Hispanic neighborhoods. In December 2004 the ''Chronicle'' acquired the Spanish-language newspaper '']''.<ref name="MorenoLaVoz"/>

==Criticism==
===Robert Jensen on the September 11 attacks===
In the weeks following the ], the ''Houston Chronicle'' published a series of opinion articles by ] journalism professor ] that asserted the United States was "just as guilty" as the hijackers in committing acts of violence and compared that attack with the history of U.S. attacks on civilians in other countries. The opinion piece resulted in hundreds of angry letters to the editor and reportedly over 4,000 angry responses to Jensen.<ref>Jensen, Robert. "." ''Houston Chronicle''. January 20, 2002. Retrieved January 8, 2012.</ref>

Among them were claims of insensitivity against the newspaper and of giving an unduly large audience to a position characterized as being extremist. University of Texas president ] issued a response denouncing Jensen's as "a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy", noting "e is not speaking in the University's name and may not speak in its name."<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/RHE306fall01/RhetAnaly/analyzethis.htm |title=CWRL.texas.edu |access-date=June 13, 2005 |archive-date=July 28, 2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050728123435/http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/RHE306fall01/RhetAnaly/analyzethis.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Light rail controversy===
{{confusing section|date=November 2020}}
The document{{which|date=February 2021}} was online for only an hour, but long enough to be viewed by some readers. Soon after, the ''Houston Review'', a conservative newspaper published by students at the ], printed the memo's full text and an accompanying commentary that criticized the paper.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.houstonreview.com/1102/chroniclememo.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021204203757/http://www.houstonreview.com/1102/chroniclememo.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 4, 2002|title=The Houston Review|date=December 4, 2002}}</ref><ref>Connelly, Richard. "." '']''. September 11, 2003. Retrieved October 20, 2011.</ref>

Harris County District Attorney Rosenthal later dismissed the ''Chronicle''{{'}}s complaint, finding it without merit on the grounds that the statute did not apply. Rosenthal's involvement in the probe itself came under fire by the '']'', which in editorials questioned whether Rosenthal was too close to TTM: from 2000 to 2004, Rosenthal accepted some $30,000 in donations from known TTM supporters.<ref>Ties That Bind? The D.A. shares something with those he's supposed to be probing: campaign support, Houston Press, January 15, 2004</ref>

===Sandoval family interview===
In early 2004, ''Chronicle'' reporter Lucas Wall interviewed the family of Leroy Sandoval, a Marine from Houston who was killed in Iraq. After the article appeared, Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station ] and said that a sentence alleging "President Bush's failure to find weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq misrepresented their views on the war and President ], that Wall had pressured them for a quotation that criticized Bush, and that the line alleging Bush's "failure" was included against the wishes of the family.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.publiustx.net/|title=PubliusTX.net|website=www.publiustx.net}}</ref>

A dispute ensued between KSEV radio show host/owner ] and an assistant managing editor at the ''Chronicle''. The incident prompted Patrick to join the call for a boycott of the paper.<ref name="Abclocal.go.com">Abrahams, Tom. "." '']''. April 4, 2004. Retrieved October 20, 2011.</ref> The story was also picked up by the local Houston television stations and, a week later, the ]. Eventually, ''Chronicle'' publisher Jack Sweeney contacted the Sandoval family to apologize.<ref name="Abclocal.go.com"/>

===Purchase of ''Houston Post'' assets===
Internal memos obtained via FOIA from the ] ] attorneys who investigated the closing of the ''Houston Post'' said the ''Chronicle's'' parent organization struck a deal to buy the ''Post'' six months before it closed. The memos, first obtained by the alternative paper the ''Houston Press'', say the ''Chronicle's'' conglomerate and the ''Post'' "reached an agreement in October, 1994, for the sale of Houston Post Co.'s assets for approximately $120 million."<ref></ref>

===Tom DeLay poll===
In January 2006 the ''Chronicle'' hired Richard Murray of the ] to conduct an election survey in the district of U.S. Rep. ], in light of his 2005 indictment by District Attorney ] for alleged campaign money violations. The ''Chronicle'' said that its poll showed "severely eroded support for U.S. Rep Tom DeLay in his district, most notably among Republicans who have voted for him before."<ref>Mack, Kristen. "." ''Houston Chronicle''. January 14, 2006. Retrieved October 20, 2011.</ref>

Former Texas Secretary of State ] contacted the ''Chronicle's'' James Howard Gibbons, alleging that the poll appeared to incorrectly count non-Republican Primary voters in its sample. Rains also asserted that Murray had a conflict of interest in the poll, as Murray's son Keir was a political consultant working for ], DeLay's Democratic challenger in 2006.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://lonestartimes.com/2006/01/19/hendee-emails-murray-re-chron-delay-poll/|title=Lone Star Times » Hendee emails Murray re: Chron DeLay poll}}</ref>

==Other controversies==
The ''Houston Chronicle'' has faced significant challenges with its journalistic integrity. In 2020, the paper faced allegations of publishing articles without properly adhering to its own ethics policy, especially in regards to contacting subjects before publishing negative portrayals. There were also claims suggesting retaliation against individuals for not purchasing advertisements.<ref>, DICK LAW FIRM, October 31, 2020</ref> This trust was further eroded in 2018 when the ''Chronicle'' retracted eight articles after it was revealed they were significantly based on sources whose existence could not be verified.<ref name="thewrap.com">{{cite web | url=https://www.thewrap.com/houston-chronicle-retracts-8-stories-after-fraud-investigation-we-apologize-to-our-readers/ | title=Houston Chronicle Retracts 8 Stories After Fraud Investigation: 'We Apologize to Our Readers' | date=November 9, 2018 }}</ref> An extensive review of the articles penned by Austin bureau chief Mike Ward showed that out of 275 individuals he quoted in various stories, 44% could not be located or confirmed.<ref name="thewrap.com"/> Beyond the retractions, an additional 64 of Ward's stories required corrections due to the inclusion of unverified sources, further tainting the paper's credibility. This was a result of an examination of 744 stories written by Ward since January 2014, with independent investigators unable to verify the existence of nearly half of the individuals he had quoted.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/houston-chronicle-retracts-stories-reporter-mike-ward-questionable-sources/ | title=Houston Chronicle retracts 8 stories after reporter Mike Ward uses questionable sources - CBS News | website=] | date=November 10, 2018 }}</ref>

==Availability of ''Houston Post'' articles==
Some '']'' articles had been made available in the archives of the ''Houston Chronicle'' website, but by 2005 they were removed. The ''Houston Chronicle'' online editor Mike Read said that the ''Houston Chronicle'' decided to remove ''Houston Post'' articles from the website after the 2001 ] '']'' decision; the newspaper originally planned to filter articles not allowed by the decision and to post articles that were not prohibited by the decision. The ''Houston Chronicle'' decided not to post or re-post any more ''Houston Post'' articles because of difficulties in complying with the ''New York Times Co. v. Tasini'' decision with the resources that were available to the newspaper.<ref name="blogs.chron.com">Newkirk, Jim. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050714082919/http://blogs.chron.com/aboutchron/archives/2005/07/houston_post_ar.html |date=July 14, 2005 }} ''Houston Chronicle''. July 1, 2005. Retrieved July 3, 2010.</ref>

People interested in reading ''Houston Post'' articles may view them on ]. The ] has the newspaper on microfilm from 1880 to 1995 and the ''Houston Post'' Index from 1976 to 1994. The 1880–1900 microfilm is in the Texas and Local History Department of the ], while 1900–1995 is in the Jesse H. Jones Building, the main building of the Central Library. In addition, the ] at the ] has the ''Houston Post'' available on microfilm from 1880 to 1995, and the ''Houston Post'' Index from 1976 to 1979 and from 1987 to 1994.<ref name="blogs.chron.com"/>

==See also==
{{portal|Texas|Journalism}}
*'']''
*'']''

==References==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist}}

===Sources===
* {{cite book |last=Caro |first=Robert A. |author-link=Robert Caro |year=2012 |title=The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. IV |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York City |pages=523–527 |isbn=978-0-679-40507-8 }}

==External links==
{{commons category}}
* {{Official website|http://www.houstonchronicle.com/}}
* (archived October 30, 2006)
*
{{Greater Houston newspapers}}
{{Hearst}}


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Latest revision as of 04:48, 5 November 2024

Daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, US

Houston Chronicle
Front page of the Houston Chronicle
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Hearst Communications
PublisherNancy Meyer
EditorKelly Ann Scott
Founded1901; 123 years ago (1901)
HeadquartersHouston Chronicle Building, 4747 Southwest Fwy., Houston, Texas 77027
CountryUnited States
Circulation142,785 (as of 2023)
ISSN1074-7109
OCLC number30348909
Websitehoustonchronicle.com

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. As of April 2016, it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. With the 1995 buyout of its longtime rival the Houston Post, the Chronicle became Houston's newspaper of record.

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper owned and operated by the Hearst Corporation, a privately held multinational corporate media conglomerate with $10 billion in revenues. The paper employs nearly 2,000 people, including approximately 300 journalists, editors, and photographers. The Chronicle has bureaus in Washington, D.C., and Austin. The paper reports that its web site averages 125 million page views per month.

The publication serves as the "newspaper of record" of the Houston area. Previously headquartered in the Houston Chronicle Building at 801 Texas Avenue, Downtown Houston, the Houston Chronicle is now located at 4747 Southwest Freeway.

While Houston Chronicle staff formerly published on the ad-supported, non-subscriber site Chron.com, today Chron and Houston Chronicle have separate websites and newsrooms. Houstonchronicle.com, launched in 2012, is a subscriber-only site that contains everything found in the daily print edition.

History

Front page of the first edition of the Houston Chronicle, October 14, 1901

From its inception, the practices and policies of the Houston Chronicle were shaped by strong-willed personalities who were the publishers. The history of the newspaper can be best understood when divided into the eras of these individuals.

1901–1926: Marcellus E. Foster era

The Houston Chronicle was founded in 1901 by a former reporter for the now-defunct Houston Post, Marcellus E. Foster. Foster, who had been covering the Spindletop oil boom for the Post, invested in Spindletop and took $30 of the return on that investment—at the time equivalent to a week's wages—and used it to fund the Chronicle.

The Chronicle's first edition was published on October 14, 1901, and sold for two cents per copy, at a time when most papers sold for five cents each. At the end of its first month in operation, the Chronicle had a circulation of 4,378—roughly one tenth of the population of Houston at the time. Within the first year of operation, the paper purchased and consolidated the Daily Herald.

In 1908, Foster asked Jesse H. Jones, a local businessman and prominent builder, to construct a new office and plant for the paper, "and offered half-interest in the newspaper as a down payment, with twenty years to pay the remainder. Jones agreed, and the resulting Chronicle Building was one of the finest in the South."

Under Foster, the paper's circulation grew from about 7,000 in 1901 to 75,000 on weekdays and 85,000 on Sundays by 1926. Foster continued to write columns under the pen name Mefo, and drew much attention in the 1920s for his opposition to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). He sold the rest of his interest to Jesse H. Jones on June 26, 1926, and promptly retired.

Goodfellows

Illustration of the Houston Chronicle building, 1913

In 1911, city editor George Kepple started Goodfellows. On Christmas Eve 1911, Kepple passed a hat among the Chronicle's reporters to collect money to buy toys for a shoe-shine boy.

Goodfellows continues today through donations made by the newspaper and its readers. It has grown into a citywide program that provides needy children between the ages of two and ten with toys during the winter holidays. In 2003, Goodfellows distributed almost 250,000 toys to more than 100,000 needy children in the Greater Houston area.

1926–1956: Jesse H. Jones era

In 1926, Jesse H. Jones became the sole owner of the paper. He had approached Foster about selling, and Foster had answered, "What will you give me?" Jones described the buyout of Foster as follows:

Wanting to be liberal with Foster if I bought him out, since he had created the paper and originally owned most of the stock, and had made a success of it, I thought for a while before answering and finally asked him how much he owed. He replied, "On real estate and everything about 200,000 dollars." I then said to him that I would give him 300,000 dollars in cash, having in mind that this would pay his debts and give him 100,000 spending money. In addition, I would give him a note for 500,000 secured by a mortgage on the Chronicle Building, the note to be payable (interest and principal) at the rate of 35,000 a year for thirty-five years, which I figured was about his expectancy. I would also pay him 20,000 dollars a year as editor of the paper and 6,000 dollars a year to continue writing the daily front-page column, "MEFO", on the condition that either of us could cancel the editorship and/or the MEFO-column contracts on six months' notice, and that, if I canceled both the column and the editorship, I would give him an additional 6,000 dollars a year for life. I considered the offer substantially more than the Chronicle was worth at the time. No sooner had I finished stating my proposition than he said, "I will take it", and the transaction was completed accordingly.

— pp. 121–122 of Jesse H. Jones: The Man and the Statesman by Bascom N. Timmons, copyright 1956 Henry Holt and Company

In 1937, Jesse H. Jones transferred ownership of the paper to the newly established Houston Endowment Inc. Jones retained the title of publisher until his death in 1956.

According to the Handbook of Texas online, the Chronicle generally represented very conservative political views during the 1950s:

... the Chronicle generally represented the very conservative political interests of the Houston business establishment. As such, it eschewed controversial political topics, such as integration or the impacts of rapid economic growth on life in the city. It did not perform investigative journalism. This resulted in a stodgy newspaper that failed to capture the interests of newcomers to the city. By 1959, circulation of the rival Houston Post had pulled ahead of the Chronicle.

Jones, a lifelong Democrat who organized the Democratic National Convention to be in Houston in 1928, and who spent long years in public service first under the Wilson administration, helping to found the Red Cross during World War I, and later famously under the Roosevelt administration, described the paper's mission in these terms:

I regard the publication of a newspaper as a distinct public trust, and one not to be treated lightly or abused for selfish purposes or to gratify selfish whims. A great daily newspaper can remain a power for good only so long as it is uninfluenced by unworthy motives, and unbought by the desire for gain. A newspaper which can be neither bought nor bullied is the greatest asset of a city or state. Naturally, a newspaper makes mistakes in judgment, as it does in type; but, so long as errors are honestly made, they are not serious when general results are considered.

The success or failure of a particular issue is of little consequence compared with the all-important principle of a fearless and honest newspaper. This I intend the Chronicle shall always be, a newspaper for all the people, democratic in fact and in principle, standing for the greatest good to the greatest number, championing and defending what it believes to be right, and condemning and opposing what it believes to be wrong.

Such have always been the policies of the Chronicle and to such it is now rededicated."

Under Jones' watch, the Chronicle bought KTRH, one of Houston's oldest radio stations, in 1937. In 1954, Jones led a syndicate that signed on Houston's third television station, KTRK-TV.

1956–1965: John T. Jones era

The board of Houston Endowment named John T. Jones, nephew of Jesse H. Jones, as editor of the Chronicle. Houston Endowment president, J. Howard Creekmore, was named publisher. In 1961, John T. Jones hired William P. Steven as editor. Steven had previously been editor of the Tulsa Tribune and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and credited with turning around the declining readership of both papers. One of his innovations was the creation of a regular help column called "Watchem", where ordinary citizens could voice their complaints. The Chicago Tribune later called this column a pioneer and prototype of the modern newspaper "Action Line".

Steven's progressive political philosophy soon created conflict with the very conservative views of the Houston Endowment board, especially when he editorially supported the election of Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic candidate for president. However, more than political philosophy was involved: Robert A. Caro revealed in his biography of Johnson that written assurance of this support from John T. Jones had been the price demanded by Johnson in January 1964 in return for approval of the merger of Houston's National Bank of Commerce, in which Jones had a financial interest, with another Houston bank, the Texas National.

In 1964, the Chronicle purchased the assets of its evening newspaper competitor, the Houston Press, becoming the only evening newspaper in the city. By then, the Chronicle had a circulation of 254,000—the largest of any paper in Texas. The Atlantic Monthly credited the growth to the changes instigated by Steven.

In the summer of 1965, Jones decided to buy a local television station that was already owned by the Houston Endowment. He resigned from the Houston Endowment board to avoid a conflict of interest, though he remained as publisher of the Chronicle. On September 2, 1965, Jones made a late-night visit to the Steven home, where he broke the news that the Endowment board had ordered him to dismiss Steven. Jones had to comply. On September 3, the paper published a story announcing that Everett Collier was now the new editor.

No mention was made of Steven or the Houston Endowment board. Houston Post staff wrote an article about the change, but top management killed it. Only two weekly papers in Houston mentioned it: Forward Times (which targeted the African-American community) and the Houston Tribune (an ultra-conservative paper). Both papers had rather small circulations and no influence among the city's business community. The two major newspapers in Houston never mentioned Steven for many years thereafter.

1965–1987: J. Howard Creekmore era

John J. Jones left the Chronicle not long after Steven's ouster. J. Howard Creekmore, president of the Houston Endowment, took John Jones' place at the Chronicle. Everett D. Collier replaced Steven as editor. Collier remained in this position until his retirement in 1979.

J. Howard Creekmore was born in Abilene, Texas, in 1905. His parents died while he was young, so he was raised by his stepmother. The family moved to Houston in 1920. Howard enrolled in Rice Institute, where he graduated with degrees in history and English. After graduation, he went to work for Jesse Jones as a bookkeeper. Jones took an interest in the young man's career, and put him through law school. Creekmore passed the bar exam in 1932 and returned to work for Jones. He held several positions in the Jones business empire. In 1959, he was named to the board of Houston Endowment, and was promoted to president of the board in 1964.

By 1965, Creekmore had persuaded other directors of Houston Endowment to sell several business properties, including the Chronicle. Houston oilman John Mecom offered $85 million for the newspaper, its building, a 30 percent interest in Texas National Bank of Commerce, and the historic Rice Hotel. Early in 1966, Mecom encountered problems raising the additional cash to complete the transaction. He then began lining up potential buyers for the newspaper, which included non-Houstonians such as Sam Newhouse, Otis Chandler and the Scripps-Howard organization. Creekmore strongly believed that local persons should own the paper. He insisted that Mecom pay the $84 million debt immediately in cash. Mecom cancelled his purchase agreement.

In 1968, the Chronicle set a Texas newspaper circulation record. In 1981, the business pages—which until then had been combined with sports—became its own section of the newspaper. Creekmore remained as publisher until Houston Endowment sold the paper to the Hearst Corporation.

1987–present: Hearst Corporation era

On May 1, 1987, the Hearst Corporation purchased the Houston Chronicle from Houston Endowment for $415 million. Richard J. V. Johnson, who had joined the paper as a copy editor in 1956, and worked up to executive vice president in 1972, and president in 1973, remained as chairman and publisher until he retired on April 1, 2002. He was succeeded by Jack Sweeney.

In 1994, the Chronicle switched to being a morning-only paper. With the demise of the Houston Post on April 18 the next year, the Chronicle became Houston's sole major daily newspaper.

On October 18, 2008, the paper endorsed Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election, the first Democrat to be endorsed by the newspaper since 1964, when it endorsed Texan Lyndon B. Johnson. It endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012, but endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Joe Biden in 2020.

Locally, the Chronicle endorsed Wendy Davis for governor in 2014, and Sylvester Turner for mayor in 2015. Additionally, the Chronicle initially endorsed Jeb Bush for the 2016 Republican primary, but did not endorse any other candidate after he dropped out.

2018 source-fabrication scandal

In September 2018, then-executive editor Nancy Barnes released a statement on the Chronicle's website notifying readers for the first time that the paper's Austin bureau chief, Mike Ward, had resigned and was the subject of an internal investigation after questions were raised by a staff member over fabricating sources. Barnes opted not to disclose the source-fabrication or Ward's resignation to Chronicle readers and the general public until she was contacted by reporters at other outlets pursuing a story about the Chronicle's scandal—one full week after Ward had resigned. By the time Barnes informed the public about what would turn into the biggest journalism scandal of 2018, it had already become one of the worst kept secrets in Austin among the capitol press corps that writes about Texas politicians. The scandal had also become popular fodder among staffers who work at the capital. Within 45 minutes of being contacted by a freelance reporter for the Texas Observer, Barnes hastily issued a press release announcing that one of her reporters bad been caught making up sources over the course of several years. Barnes never explained why the Chronicle decided against being transparent to it readers immediately, instead of waiting for word to leak to the extent that other news outlets started planning stories.

The sources being questioned in Ward's reporting were the product of "man-on-the-street" interviews from a story dealing with rebuilding efforts following Hurricane Harvey. Barnes said Houston Chronicle researchers had problems finding a number of sources quoted in Ward's story, so the newspaper hired investigative journalist David Wood, a Pulitzer Prize winner.

On November 8, 2018, one day before Barnes left for a position as senior vice president of news at National Public Radio, the Houston Chronicle released some of Wood's findings. The paper announced it was retracting a total of eight stories.

Barnes later went on to tell Columbia Journalism Review that the widespread fabrication apparent in Ward's articles was unprecedented, in her experience: "I've been an editor a long time and I have never seen anything like this, period.". None of the Chronicle's editors responsible for overseeing Ward's stories—including then-managing editor Vernon Loeb—assumed any responsibility for the fact that one of their reporters had been cheating for years under their noses. In many instances over the course of years, Loeb worked directly with Ward and even rewrote his stories for final publication.

The Austin American Statesman, where Ward worked as a reporter for 25 years covering the state's political class prior to joining the Houston Chronicle in 2014, also conducted an internal review of "his final years" of work at the paper.

A copy of the original story that led to the investigation has been removed from the Chronicle's website. But Austin-based NPR affiliate KUT interviewed Ward for the radio in the days after the story ran and still has the story posted on its website, despite the fact that the sources used in Ward's reporting are suspected of being fake.

Headquarters

4747 Southwest Freeway

The current Houston Chronicle headquarters, formerly the Houston Post headquarters

On July 21, 2014, the Chronicle announced that its Downtown employees were moving to the 610 Loop campus, at the intersection of the 610 Loop and U.S. Route 59/I-69 (Southwest Freeway).

The facility, previously used as the Houston Post headquarters, will have a total of seven buildings with a total of over 440,000 square feet (41,000 m) of space. The original building is a 1970s four-story "New Brutalist" building.

As of 2016, the building housed the Chronicle Production Department, as well as the offices of the Spanish newspaper La Voz de Houston.

801 Texas Avenue

Houston Chronicle headquarters in Downtown Houston before its demolition

The Houston Chronicle building in Downtown Houston was the headquarters of the Houston Chronicle. The facility included a loading dock, office space, a press room, and production areas. It had ten stories above ground and three stories below ground. The printing presses used by the newspaper spanned three stories. The presses were two stories below ground and one above. In the Downtown facility, the presses there were decommissioned in the late 2000s. The newsroom within the facility had bullpen-style offices with a few private cubicles and offices on the edges. The facility was connected to the downtown Houston tunnel system. Turner wrote that "in recent decades," 801 Texas Avenue "offered viewers an architectural visage of unadorned boxiness.... An accretion of five buildings made into one, it featured a maze of corridors, cul-de-sacs and steps that seemed to spring on strollers at the most unexpected times."

The facility, which was 106 years old in 2016, was originally four separate structures, which were joined to make one building. Jesse H. Jones erected the first Chronicle building, a long, narrow structure clad in granite, on the corner of Travis Street and Texas Avenue in 1910. The second building, the Majestic Theater, was built west of the Chronicle building. The second building built by Jones opened in 1910. In 1918, the third Jones building, Milam Building, opened west of the theater. An annex was built on the north side of the main building in 1938 and gained a fifth floor in the 1960s. The fifth building was a production plant, built north of the original four buildings. They were joined in a major renovation and modernization project, which was completed in the late 1960s.

On April 25, 2017, it was imploded and reduced to rubble. The site is now occupied by the Texas Tower.

People

Awards

  • 2000: Houston's M. D. Anderson Cancer Center gave the Chronicle its Joseph T. Ainsworth Volunteer Community Award for making the newspaper available at a "greatly reduced rate" to the hospital and its patients.
  • 2002: Holocaust Museum Houston awarded the Chronicle its "Guardian of the Human spirit" award. The presenter, Janis Goldstein, said the award was given "because the Houston Chronicle embraces the causes most dear to it with a depth and scope that goes well beyond what is expected." Also, that "the Chronicle gives of itself to build a community that will embrace tolerance, understanding, and diversity and will speak out against prejudice and unfairness of any kind."

Individual awards

  • 1963: William Porterfield won an Ernie Pyle Award.
  • 1989–1997: Carlos Antonio Rios, a Chronicle photographer since 1978, has repeatedly been honored for his photojournalism by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
  • 2003: James Howard Gibbons received third place in the "Hearst Distinguished Journalism Awards", an internal contest held between Hearst's newspapers, for his editorial piece "When Will the U.S. Liberate Texas?"
  • Leon Hale, a long-time columnist and author of 11 books, recently received the Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career from the Texas Institute of Letters, of which Hale is a member.
  • Jason Witmer won first place in the 48 Hour–Web category of the National Press Photographers Association's annual Best of Photojournalism in 2010 for his piece, "Too Manly for Quilt Show". Whitmer won second place in the News Feature–Web category for "Suddenly homeless in Houston".

Pulitzer Prize

The newspaper and its staff have several times been Pulitzer finalists:

  • Dudley Althaus – 1992 finalist in international reporting: "For his articles on the causes of the cholera epidemic in Peru and Mexico."
  • Tony Freemantle – 1997 finalist in international reporting: "For his reporting from Rwanda, South Africa, El Salvador and Guatemala on why crimes against humanity go unstopped and unpunished."
  • Nick Anderson – 2007 finalist for editorial cartooning: "For his pungent cartoons on an array of issues, and for his bold use of animation." Anderson won the Pulitzer in 2005 when working for The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Staff – 2009 finalist for breaking news coverage: "For taking full advantage of online technology and its newsroom expertise to become a lifeline to the city when Hurricane Ike struck, providing vital minute-by-minute updates on the storm, its flood surge and its aftermath."
  • Staff - 2017 finalist for public service. "For exposing the grave injustice of arbitrary cost-cutting by the State of Texas that denied tutoring, counseling and other vital special education services to families, hindering the futures of tens of thousands of children.
  • Joe Holley and Evan Mintz – 2017 finalist for editorial writing. "For editorials on gun laws, gun culture and gun tragedies that combined wit, eloquence and moral power in a fine brew of commonsense argumentation."
  • Staff – 2018 finalist for breaking news. "For comprehensive and dynamic coverage of Hurricane Harvey that captured real-time developments of the unprecedented scale of the disaster and provided crucial information to its community during the storm and its aftermath."

Other notable people

  • Fernando Dovalina Jr. (former assistant managing editor)
  • Maxine Mesinger (gossip columnist)
  • Leon Hale (columnist)
  • Richard Justice (sports writer)
  • Heidi Van Horne (automotive columnist)
  • Ken Hammond (editor, Texas Magazine, Chronicle Sunday Edition)
  • Sunny Nash (contributor, columnist, photographer, author)
  • Marjorie Paxson (influential women's page editor)
  • Julie Mason, newspaper and radio journalist
  • Alison Cook (James Beard Award-Winning Restaurant Critic)
  • Joy Sewing, first Black columnist in the newspaper's history

Other publications

In April 2004 the Houston Chronicle began carrying a Spanish-language supplement, the entertainment magazine La Vibra. La Vibra caters to speakers of Spanish and bilingual English-Spanish speakers, and is mainly distributed in Hispanic neighborhoods. In December 2004 the Chronicle acquired the Spanish-language newspaper La Voz de Houston.

Criticism

Robert Jensen on the September 11 attacks

In the weeks following the September 11 attacks, the Houston Chronicle published a series of opinion articles by University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen that asserted the United States was "just as guilty" as the hijackers in committing acts of violence and compared that attack with the history of U.S. attacks on civilians in other countries. The opinion piece resulted in hundreds of angry letters to the editor and reportedly over 4,000 angry responses to Jensen.

Among them were claims of insensitivity against the newspaper and of giving an unduly large audience to a position characterized as being extremist. University of Texas president Larry Faulkner issued a response denouncing Jensen's as "a fountain of undiluted foolishness on issues of public policy", noting "e is not speaking in the University's name and may not speak in its name."

Light rail controversy

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The document was online for only an hour, but long enough to be viewed by some readers. Soon after, the Houston Review, a conservative newspaper published by students at the University of Houston, printed the memo's full text and an accompanying commentary that criticized the paper.

Harris County District Attorney Rosenthal later dismissed the Chronicle's complaint, finding it without merit on the grounds that the statute did not apply. Rosenthal's involvement in the probe itself came under fire by the Houston Press, which in editorials questioned whether Rosenthal was too close to TTM: from 2000 to 2004, Rosenthal accepted some $30,000 in donations from known TTM supporters.

Sandoval family interview

In early 2004, Chronicle reporter Lucas Wall interviewed the family of Leroy Sandoval, a Marine from Houston who was killed in Iraq. After the article appeared, Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station KSEV and said that a sentence alleging "President Bush's failure to find weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq misrepresented their views on the war and President George W. Bush, that Wall had pressured them for a quotation that criticized Bush, and that the line alleging Bush's "failure" was included against the wishes of the family.

A dispute ensued between KSEV radio show host/owner Dan Patrick and an assistant managing editor at the Chronicle. The incident prompted Patrick to join the call for a boycott of the paper. The story was also picked up by the local Houston television stations and, a week later, the O'Reilly Factor. Eventually, Chronicle publisher Jack Sweeney contacted the Sandoval family to apologize.

Purchase of Houston Post assets

Internal memos obtained via FOIA from the Justice Department antitrust attorneys who investigated the closing of the Houston Post said the Chronicle's parent organization struck a deal to buy the Post six months before it closed. The memos, first obtained by the alternative paper the Houston Press, say the Chronicle's conglomerate and the Post "reached an agreement in October, 1994, for the sale of Houston Post Co.'s assets for approximately $120 million."

Tom DeLay poll

In January 2006 the Chronicle hired Richard Murray of the University of Houston to conduct an election survey in the district of U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, in light of his 2005 indictment by District Attorney Ronnie Earle for alleged campaign money violations. The Chronicle said that its poll showed "severely eroded support for U.S. Rep Tom DeLay in his district, most notably among Republicans who have voted for him before."

Former Texas Secretary of State Jack Rains contacted the Chronicle's James Howard Gibbons, alleging that the poll appeared to incorrectly count non-Republican Primary voters in its sample. Rains also asserted that Murray had a conflict of interest in the poll, as Murray's son Keir was a political consultant working for Nick Lampson, DeLay's Democratic challenger in 2006.

Other controversies

The Houston Chronicle has faced significant challenges with its journalistic integrity. In 2020, the paper faced allegations of publishing articles without properly adhering to its own ethics policy, especially in regards to contacting subjects before publishing negative portrayals. There were also claims suggesting retaliation against individuals for not purchasing advertisements. This trust was further eroded in 2018 when the Chronicle retracted eight articles after it was revealed they were significantly based on sources whose existence could not be verified. An extensive review of the articles penned by Austin bureau chief Mike Ward showed that out of 275 individuals he quoted in various stories, 44% could not be located or confirmed. Beyond the retractions, an additional 64 of Ward's stories required corrections due to the inclusion of unverified sources, further tainting the paper's credibility. This was a result of an examination of 744 stories written by Ward since January 2014, with independent investigators unable to verify the existence of nearly half of the individuals he had quoted.

Availability of Houston Post articles

Some Houston Post articles had been made available in the archives of the Houston Chronicle website, but by 2005 they were removed. The Houston Chronicle online editor Mike Read said that the Houston Chronicle decided to remove Houston Post articles from the website after the 2001 United States Supreme Court New York Times Co. v. Tasini decision; the newspaper originally planned to filter articles not allowed by the decision and to post articles that were not prohibited by the decision. The Houston Chronicle decided not to post or re-post any more Houston Post articles because of difficulties in complying with the New York Times Co. v. Tasini decision with the resources that were available to the newspaper.

People interested in reading Houston Post articles may view them on microfilm. The Houston Public Library has the newspaper on microfilm from 1880 to 1995 and the Houston Post Index from 1976 to 1994. The 1880–1900 microfilm is in the Texas and Local History Department of the Julia Ideson Building, while 1900–1995 is in the Jesse H. Jones Building, the main building of the Central Library. In addition, the M.D. Anderson Library at the University of Houston has the Houston Post available on microfilm from 1880 to 1995, and the Houston Post Index from 1976 to 1979 and from 1987 to 1994.

See also

References

Citations

  1. "2023 Texas Newspaper Directory". Texas Press Association. Archived from the original on May 3, 2023. Retrieved May 3, 2023.
  2. "Web Services". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved January 25, 2017.
  3. Stolzenberg, Lisa, and Stewart J. D'Alessio (criminal justice professors from Florida International University School of Policy and Management). "Capital punishment, execution publicity and murder in Houston, Texas". (Archive.) Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Northwestern University School of Law, January 1, 2004. Volume 94, Issue 2 (Winter), Article 4. Retrieved on May 15, 2015. Posted by Gale Group/Cengage Learning. pp. 351–380. JSTOR 3491373. Available at Thefreelibrary. CITED: p. 364. "The Houston Chronicle is the newspaper of record for Houston and has the largest circulation of any daily newspaper in the city."
  4. "Houston Chronicle". Hearst Corporation. Retrieved on February 7, 2016. "4747 Southwest Fwy. Houston, TX 77027"
  5. "Chron About Us". August 18, 2024. Retrieved August 8, 2024.
  6. O'Laughlin, John (November 18, 2012). "Letter to our readers announcing HoustonChronicle.com". Chron. Retrieved December 22, 2018.
  7. ^ The Handbook of Texas Online. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
  8. Timmons, Bascom Nolly (1956). Jesse H. Jones, the Man and the Statesman. London: Greenwood Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-8371-7925-4.
  9. Handbook of Texas Online. "Foster, Marcellus Elliot (1870–1942)". Retrieved March 26, 2010.
  10. Gonzales, J. R. "Another way to get your news from the Chronicle." Houston Chronicle. October 14, 2008. Retrieved May 26, 2010. The image is not from the J. R. Gonzalez article, but the picture in the Gonzales article depicts the same building that is seen in the illustration.
  11. "Home". Houston Chronicle.
  12. Jesse H. Jones, The Man and the Statesman, pp. 122–123
  13. Heise, Kenan. "W. P. Steven, Ex-newspaper Executive." Chicago Tribune. August 11, 1991. Retrieved October 5, 2011.
  14. Caro 2012, pp. 523–527.
  15. ^ Bagdikian, Ben H. theatlantic.com "Houston's Shackled Press". Atlantic Monthly. August 1966. Retrieved March 25, 2010.
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  17. Time. "Newspapers: A Deal Done In" June 17, 1966. time.com Retrieved May 10, 2010.
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