Foster's Daily Democrat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Foster's Daily Democrat | |
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| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Broadsheet |
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| Owner | Geo. J. Foster Company |
| Publisher | Robert H. Foster |
| Editor | Rodney G. Doherty |
| Founded | 1873 |
| Headquarters | 150 Venture Drive, Dover, New Hampshire 03820 USA |
| Circulation | 20,053 daily, 24,428 Sunday in 2006.[1] |
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| Website: http://fosters.com | |
Foster's Daily Democrat is a six-day (Monday-Saturday) afternoon broadsheet newspaper published in Dover, New Hampshire, for the communities of southeast New Hampshire and southwest Maine. It publishes on Sunday as Foster's Sunday Citizen.
In addition to its Dover headquarters, Foster's maintains news bureaus in Rochester, Somersworth and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as a statehouse bureau in Concord.
As of early 2007, the executive editor of the paper is Rodney Doherty, the managing editor is Mary Pat Rowland and the city editor is Michael Gillis. The editorial page editor is Jon Breen.
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[edit] History and Politics
Founded by Joshua L. Foster on June 18, 1873, as a pro-slavery alternate voice in anti-slavery New England,[2][3] Foster's Daily Democrat still takes a conservative line in its editorial pages.
The paper endorsed George Bush in the 2000 primaries and no one in the general election. It has endorsed District 1 Congressman Jeb Bradley on a number of occasions[4] and it is considered rare for a Democratic candidate to get an endorsement nod from Foster's. Foster's is for the death penalty.
Despite the paper's name, its editorials have been described as combative toward Democrats in recent decades.[citation needed] The paper was named after the U.S. Democratic Party in the 19th century, when it was the conservative, pro-slavery party.
In 1988, following Foster's coverage of Gary Hart entering the Democratic primary election, editor Rodney G. Doherty described himself as a "black sheep" of journalism and said he edits "a blue-collar paper." He said he prefers a hard-news, top-down style of newsroom management, with young reporters filing several quick stories based on assignments from editors, rather than longer, more analytical pieces. He said likes to see reporters write about "what is news, rather than what they think is the news."[5]
Colin Manning, who headed up Foster's statehouse notebook, later went on to be New Hampshire governor John Lynch's communications director.[6]
[edit] Sisters and Competitors
Foster's competes head-to-head with The Portsmouth Herald, a daily newspaper based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and with Dover Community News, a weekly owned by The Herald. It also competes with the statewide daily New Hampshire Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News.
In the late 1990s, the Geo. J. Foster Company launched Foster's Sunday Citizen to compete with Herald Sunday and the Sunday News. The Sunday paper is a joint venture by Foster's and its sister paper in Laconia, New Hampshire, The Citizen.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ Audit Bureau of Circulation, report for six-month period ending September 30, 2006.
- ^ New Hampshire Gazette Literary Lions, Summer of 2006
- ^ http://seacoastnh.com/History/As_I_Please/The_Newspaper_Riot_of_1865/
- ^ Including this one
- ^ Hohler, Bob. "Defining What's Important." The Boston Globe, January 24, 1988.
- ^ http://www.fosters.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061210/NEWS1303/112100096&SearchID=73265757698213
- ^ Kittredge, Clare. "A News War Takes Shape in Portsmouth". The Boston Globe, November 2, 1997
