The Winston-Salem Journal is a daily newspaper primarily serving the city of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and its county, Forsyth County, North Carolina. It also features coverage of Northwestern North Carolina and circulates as far west as Tennessee and north to Virginia.

The paper is owned by Media General. The Journal was founded in 1897.

Overview[link]

The Journal is primarily distributed through Forsyth County and the county seat of Winston-Salem. However, the paper also is distributed in Alleghany County, Ashe County, Davidson County, Davie County, Stokes County, Surry County, Wilkes County, Watauga County, and Yadkin County.

The newspaper has an online presence called JournalNow. The Journal's television partner is WGHP of High Point, North Carolina.

The paper also produces a weekly entertainment and social tabloid called Relish.

Its editorial-page slant is considered moderate, although its conservative readership often decries its liberal bias and its liberal readers point out that the Journal hasn't endorsed a Democratic Party presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In 2004, the paper refused to endorse a presidential candidate. [1]

History[link]

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The Winston-Salem Journal was founded as an afternoon newspaper on April 3, 1897, as a competitor to the existing Twin City Sentinel, which also published in the afternoon. When founder Charles Langdon Knight left town only a few months later, the paper struggled through a series of owners in the crowded afternoon field before publisher D.A. Fawcett shifted it to a morning publication on January 2, 1902.

Later that summer The Journal started a Sunday edition. When the first edition appeared, Fawcett was dropped from the rolls of his church. The next year the Journal was purchased by A.F.W. Leslie and his son, A.V. Leslie. The elder Leslie was an artist and the son of an engraver. He and his son developed the Journal into North Carolina’s first illustrated newspaper.

In 1925, when Owen Moon bought The Journal, Winston-Salem was the state’s largest city with a population of 48,395. In February 1927 he bought the Twin City Sentinel from Frank A. Gannett of the New York newspaper chain.

The Sentinel could trace its history to the very early days of the small Moravian settlement in Salem. It was started as the first daily newspaper of the combined villages of Winston and Salem as The Twin City Daily on May 4, 1885. Along the way it acquired the weekly Western Sentinel which had been Winston’s first newspaper when it began publishing May 16, 1856. In turn, the Western Sentinel had acquired the Weekly Gleaner, which was founded by John Christian Blum on January 6, 1829, when the village of Salem numbered only 503 inhabitants.

Moon consolidated the operations of The Winston-Salem Journal and The Twin City Sentinel in a new building on North Marshall Street in 1927 and named his Sunday edition The Journal and Sentinel. He published lively, controversial and crusading newspapers. His editor, Santford Martin, campaigned successfully for good roads into what he called “the forgotten provinces” of Northwest North Carolina. Moon sold the papers on April 30, 1937, to Gordon Gray, a local attorney whose family had been prominent in the city since Winston’s founding in 1849.

Gray established a long tradition of strong community service for Forsyth County and Northwest North Carolina, which continues today under the ownership of Media General, Inc. Media General purchased the newspapers from the Gray family in 1969. Today Media General, Inc. is a publicly held company that owns newspapers, TV stations, cable TV operations and newsprint recycling plants throughout the Southeast. The Bryan family, long-time publishers of the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, is the major shareholders of the company.

Both the Journal and The Sentinel have won numerous national, state and regional professional honors including the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1971.

In March 1985, following industry-wide trends of declining circulation for afternoon newspapers, The Sentinel closed. This move gave Winston-Salem a stronger, improved morning paper. With the close of The Sentinel, the Winston-Salem Journal’s daily circulation jumped from 73,000 to more than 94,000 and its Sunday circulation increased to more than 106,000. The Winston-Salem Journal also produces a number of non-newspaper publications. These include specialized publications for senior adults, pet owners, families with children in Forsyth County schools, brides-to-be and young parents. The Journal’s Piedmont Delivery Service delivers many of these periodicals.

In September 1994 the Journal moved its printing, packaging and storage departments into a new 140,000 square feet (13,000 m²) facility conveniently located on East 5th Street near Business I-40. The state-of-the-art facility houses a new Mitsubishi presses that provide the expanded color and printing capacity that the Journal will need to meet the information demands of the region well into the 21st century.

WSJS, an AM broadcast radio station in Winston-Salem, takes its call letters from "Winston-Salem Journal Sentinel" from the time when the newspapers owned the primary radio and television station outlets in the city.

Cutbacks in the 2000's decade and essentially leaving Winston Salem[link]

In August 2007, the Journal reported it was ending its daily business section and cutting five positions. Two of the positions eliminated were in the newsroom. [2]

In April 2010, the Winston-Salem Journal's parent company Media General announced that it was slashing all Winston Salem-based copy editor and design positions. Media General also announced that they are going to use a portion of their $1 million of cost savings to "focus on intensified local news coverage." ^[1]

In October 2010, the paper's Executive Editor was let go as a cost-cutting measure.^[2]

On December 15, 2010, the Winston-Salem Journal fired another 18 employees, in the closing of its copy desk.^[3] "Eighteen good, accomplished and caring journalists lost their jobs in what can only be described as a short-sighted corporate decision to bolster profits" ^[4] "Any Newspaper's success is its credibility, not its bottom line." Karen Parker ^[5]

On April 9, 2012, (roughly two years after slashing the paper) the Winston Salem Journal's parent company Media General listed revenue that included revenue projections "if newspaper division is sold." "Media General projects $660.3 million in revenue for fiscal year 2012 compared with $616.2 million in fiscal 2011. Without the newspaper division, Media General's revenue is projected as $346.8 million."^[6]

Pulitzer Prizes[link]

• 1971—Meritorious public service, staff; "for coverage of environmental problems, as exemplified by a successful campaign to block strip mining operation that would have caused irreparable damage to the hill country of northwest North Carolina."

Senior Leaders[link]

• President and Publisher: Jeffrey P. Green
• Managing Editor: Carol L. Hanner
• Editorial Page Editor: John Railey
• Vice President Sales and Marketing: Terry Coomes
• Circulation Director: Keith Petty
• Production Director: Frank B. Clayton
• Controller: David H. Stanfield

References[link]

External links[link]

• Winston-Salem Journal

v t e Piedmont Triad Location North Carolina Piedmont Piedmont Crescent I-85 Corridor NW Piedmont C.O.G. Piedmont Triad C.O.G. Cities Greensboro Winston-Salem High Point Asheboro Burlington Clemmons Eden Graham Kernersville Lexington Reidsville Thomasville Counties Alamance Davie Davidson Forsyth Guilford Randolph Rockingham Stokes Surry Yadkin Newspapers Greensboro News & Record Winston-Salem Journal High Point Enterprise Burlington Times-News Thomasville Times Archdale-Trinity News Higher education Wake Forest University Salem College Winston-Salem State University University of North Carolina School of the Arts High Point University Guilford College University of North Carolina at Greensboro Greensboro College Bennett College North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Elon University Protected areas Blue Ridge Parkway Deep River State Trail Guilford Courthouse National Military Park Hanging Rock State Park Haw River State Park Mayo River State Park Mountains-to-Sea Trail Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail Pilot Mountain State Park Rendezvous Mountain Educational State Forest Stone Mountain State Park Uwharrie National Forest Yadkin River State Trail Transportation I-40 I-85 I-73 I-74 Bus I-40 Bus I-85 US 29 US 52 US 64 US 220 US 311 US 421 Piedmont Triad International Airport Greensboro Urban Loop Winston-Salem Beltway