Oakland Tribune
The Oakland Tribune was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California, and a predecessor of the East Bay Times. It was published by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group.[1][2][3] Founded in 1874, the Tribune rose to become an influential daily newspaper. With the decline of print media, in 2016, the paper announced that the Tribune would fold into a new newspaper entitled, the East Bay Times along with its owners other newspapers in the East Bay starting April 5, 2016.[2] The former nameplates of the consolidated newspapers will continue to be published every Friday as weekly community supplements.
Type
Weekly newspaper
George Staniford and Benet A. Dewes
Sharon Ryan
Bert Robinson
February 21, 1874
English
2016
The Mercury News, East Bay Times
California Digital Newspaper Collection
Origin[edit]
The Tribune was founded February 21, 1874, by George Staniford and Benet A. Dewes. The Oakland Daily Tribune was first printed at 468 Ninth St. as a 4-page, 3-column newspaper, 6 by 10 inches. Staniford and Dewes gave out copies free of charge. The paper had news stories and 43 advertisements.
Staniford, the editor and Dewes, the printer, were credited with producing a paper with fine typographical look and editorial nature. The competition was the Oakland News and Oakland Transcript. The first editorial stated, "There seems to be an open field for a journal like the Tribune in Oakland, and we accordingly proceed to occupy it, presenting the Tribune, which is intended to be a permanent daily paper, deriving its support solely from advertising patronage."
Later that year, Staniford sold his half interest to Dewes; then, Dewes sold a half interest to A.B. Gibson. The Tribune moved, January 30, 1875, to 911 Broadway and Gibson sold his half interest to the paper to A. E. Nightingill. In 1876, Dewes and Nightingill, found a buyer for the Tribune.
End of the Knowland Era: CCC and Gannett[edit]
In 1977, the Knowland Family sold the Oakland Tribune to Combined Communications Corporation, owned by Arizona-based outdoor sign mogul Karl Eller. The Tribune Publishing Corporation, was dissolved by the Knowland Family. Eller had recently acquired The Cincinnati Enquirer. In 1979, CCC merged with the East Coast-based media conglomerate Gannett Company, and the Tribune was thus acquired by Gannett Company. That year, Allen H. Neuharth, Gannett CEO, used the Tribune as a pilot project with a new morning paper called East Bay Today, which served as an early prototype of Gannett's later national paper USA Today. In 1979, Gannett named Robert C. Maynard (1937–1993) editor, becoming the first African-American editor in the paper's history. In 1983, Maynard—who by this time had become publisher and with Gannett's blessing—consolidated the Tribune and East Bay Today into a single morning newspaper under the Tribune name.
The Maynard era[edit]
In 1983, Maynard and his wife, Nancy Hicks Maynard, purchased the Tribune from Gannett for $17 million (financed by a loan from Gannett) in the first management-led leveraged buyout in U.S. newspaper history. It was also historic for the Tribune becoming the first major metropolitan daily newspaper owned by an African-American. This was seen as especially notable as Oakland was developing a relatively large African-American community which, by the 1980s, was becoming increasingly influential in local business and politics. Maynard helped restore the paper's reputation, earning a Pulitzer Prize in 1990.[8]
But for all of its editorial kudos under Maynard, the Tribune still was plagued by financial difficulties beyond Maynard's control. Facing a debt of $31.5 million and on the brink of folding in August 1991, the Tribune was saved by the Freedom Forum, Allen H. Neuharth's media foundation. The Freedom Forum paid Gannett $2.5 million, retired the Tribune's debt and gave Maynard $5 million in operating funds. But the rescue proved to be short-lived, and the continuing financial pressures—combined with the disclosure in July 1992 that Robert Maynard had been diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer—forced the Maynards to put the Tribune up for sale.
The Tribune Tower was severely damaged in the Loma Prieta earthquake of October 17, 1989, yet the paper continued to publish there until ANG moved it to a building located at Oakland's Jack London Square at the edge of San Francisco Bay. The Tower sat empty until 1995, when John Protopappas purchased it for $300,000. His company, Madison Park Financial Corporation, renovated the Tower in the late 1990s. The Tribune returned to the Tower after it reopened in 1999.
Pulitzer Prizes[edit]
The Oakland Tribune won the Pulitzer Prize for a photograph of a small private plane narrowly missing a B-29 Superfortress in 1950, and again for photographs of the aftermath of the October 17, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake.[13]
The majority of this article is from the History of the Oakland Tribune.