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The Houston Chronicle is a daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. It is one of the 10 largest newspapers in the United States, with a daily circulation 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 owned and operated by the New York based Hearst Corporation, a company with $4 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., Mexico, Colombia, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Beaumont and the Rio Grande Valley. Its web site averages 25 million hits per month.
History
The Houston Chronicle was founded in 1901 by a former reporter for the Houston Post, Marcellus E. Foster, who obtained financial success on an investment he made while covering the Spindletop oil well boom. The paper's first edition was published on 14 October, 1901 and it sold for $0.02 per copy, at a time when most paper sold for $0.05. At the end of its first month in operation, the Chronicle had a circulation of 4,378 compared, roughly 1/10th the population of Houston at the time. Within the first year of operation, the paper purchased and consolidated the Daily Herald. In 1911, City Editor George Kepple started Goodfellows, the paper's holiday charity. In 1926, Jesse H. Jones became the sole owner of the paper. In 1968, the Chronicle set a Texas newspaper circulation record. In 1981, the Business Section became its own section of the newspaper. Up until then, Sports and Business had been combined in one section. On 1 May 1987, the Hearst Corportion purchased the Houston Chronicle for $415 Million. In 1994, the Chronicle switched to being a morning-only paper.
People
Jack Sweeney is the publisher and president of the Houston Chronicle.
As of May 2005, the editorial board includes Jack Sweeny, Clyde Peterson (Editorial Cartoonist), Andrea Georgsson (Editorial Writer), Judy Minshew (Viewpoints Editor), Claudia Kolker (Editorial Writer), Tim Fleck (Editorial Writer), Jeff Cohen (Executive Vice President and Editor), James Howard Gibbons (Editor / Opinion pages), David Langworthy (Outlook Editor), James T. Campbell (Reader Feedback Representative), Vernoica Bucio (Assistant Outlook Editor).
The paper employs nearly 2,000 people, including approximately 300 journalists, editors, and photographers. In addition, the Chronicle contracts with multiple distributors who circulate and deliver copies of the newspaper.
Writers include Leon Hale, who recently received the prestigious Lon Tinkle Award for Excellence Sustained Throughout a Career.
Editorial practices
Its opinion page editor, James Howard Gibbons, has stated that "The Chronicle's editorial policy is neither liberal nor conservative, but based upon principles and pragmatism that transcend, or, less grandly, avoid partisan ideology."
Criticism
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On the political right, the paper's main critics are conservative talk radio stations including KSEV radio and an affiliated weblog entitled Chronically Biased. The paper's editorial page is often a target for satire and derision in Houston political circles for what critics perceive as an overbearing habit of promoting light rail 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.
In May of 2005 the Harris County Republican Party 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 Tom DeLay.
The newspaper also has critics on the political left. The Houston Press, an alternative weekly paper that often takes a liberal perspective, frequently runs a column entitled "News Hostage", which critiques the Chronicle. The Houston Press described the paper as a "tireless promoter of rail" and mocked its editorial board's habit of portraying rail as the key to making Houston a "world class" city.
Light Rail memorandum controversy
In late 2002, Chronicle website managers accidentally posted an internal memorandum to reporters on its home site, HoustonChronicle.com. 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 mass transit referendum to expand Houston's controversial METRORail system on the 2003 ballot, which was later approved narrowly by voters. The memo's anonymous author suggested in part:
- "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"
The memorandum then proposed several "investigative" news stories and editorials designed to examine "the campaign led by Tom DeLay and Bob Lanier to defeat rail expansion." DeLay, a Houston congressman, and Lanier, a former mayor of Houston, had both actively opposed light rail in the past.
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 its 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. Several other local weekly and monthly newspapers, including the Houston Forward Times, a local African-American weekly newspaper, seized on the controversy, as did local talk radio stations, bloggers, and the conservative Free Republic Internet forum. Texas Media Watch, a San Antonio-based media monitoring group, cited the memo in its 2003 Bias Indicators Report as an example of "orchestrated bias."
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."
Later, the Houston Press tracked down Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen, who defended the memorandum in unapologetic terms: "I make no apologies for having a thorough discussion of the issue. We have nothing to apologize for…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."
In subsequent weeks several Houston bloggers reported writing letters to the editor about the memorandum, though none were ever published . Beyond the correction statement and Cohen's comments, the newspaper maintained complete silence about the memorandum scandal or the allegations of bias it produced.
Further, in keeping with the indications of the memorandum, the Chronicle editorial page became a vocal public advocate of the METROrail referendum in late 2003 and repeatedly endorsed its adoption. 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's lawyers filed a criminal complaint under chapter 273 of the Texas Elections Code with Harris County, Texas District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal accusing Texans for True Mobility (TTM), the main organization opposing the bond, of fundraising improprieties. The complaint alleged that TTM had violated Texas statutes requiring PAC fundraising disclosures, which is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a $500 fine. TTM, however, was registered as a 501(c)6 organization rather than a PAC. Rosenthal later dismissed the Chronicle's complaint, finding it without merit on the grounds that the allegedly violated statute did not apply to the case.
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 Houston Press, 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.
Planned Parenthood Contributions
The newspaper's objectivity on the issue of abortion has also been called into question following revelations that the Chronicle makes several annual contributions to abortion provider Planned Parenthood. According to an investigation by the Houston Review, the Chronicle and one of its executives, Richard J. V. Johnson, have donated several thousand dollars to the abortion provider and sponsored its events. The paper's support for Planned Parenthood has also been cited by KSEV radio and the Republican Party as a reason for their boycotts.
Iraq War
In early 2004 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.
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 George W. Bush (the Sandoval family was supportive of the war). The next day Sandoval's stepfather and sister called into Houston talk radio station KSEV 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.
A bitter on-air showdown ensued between Dan Patrick, the radio show host, 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 O'Reilly Factor.The issue cooled down when Chronicle publisher Jack Sweeney contacted the Sandoval family to apologize.
Purchase of Houston Post Assets
In 1995, 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.
Internal memos obtained from by FOIA from the Justice Department antitrust 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."
No anti-trust charges have been filed against the Houston Chronicle, the Houston Post or against the Hearst corporation.
External links
- Links critical of the Chronicle:
- chronicallybiased.com - Anti-Chronicle weblog
- Lone Star Times "Lone Star Times" - weblog affiliated with KSEV radio
- Texas Media Watch - Texas media watchdog organization