The Dallas Morning News is a daily newspaper that serves the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas. It has about 271,000 subscribers, and it is considered one of the most significant paid circulations in the United States. It was founded in October 1885, and throughout the years, the Dallas Morning News was able to bag nine Pulitzer Prizes and an Overseas Press Club award. In this article, we will know more about the history of Dallas Morning News and how it came to Dallas’s leading daily newspaper.
History
In 1885, the Dallas Morning News was established as a spin-off of the Galveston Daily News, founded by Alfred Horatio Belo. However, in 1926, the Belo family decided to sell most of the paper’s interest to their longtime publisher, George Dealey.
Since its foundation, The Dallas Morning News reported state news, and they abstained from having any formal affiliation with any political party. The Dallas Morning News had an initial circulation of 5,000, and they soon acquired the Herald, where they had to lease a special train on the Texas and Pacific Railway to bring papers to Fort Worth. In 1887, the newspaper decided to expand its reach and rented another special train on the Houston and Texas Central so that they could deliver papers to Sherman, McKinney, and Denison every morning. Partly, this move was made so that the Morning News could acquire some share from their most serious challenger, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which had a higher circulation than any other newspaper in the state at that time.
In 1888, the Morning News started to print eight to twelve-page edition every Monday to Saturday, and sixteen pages every Sunday. The paper’s circulation reached about 17,000 in 1895. And by 1906, The Dallas Morning News prints about 38,000 newspapers daily. In 1914, the Dallas Morning News decided to launch an evening paper, called the Dallas Journal. George Bannerman Dealey, the man who started the Morning News, served as the newspaper’s editor until 1920 when he was hailed as the president of the A.H. Belo Corporation. In 1928, the Morning News’ circulation reached 86,000 daily, and it grew to 150,000 in 1950 until it reached 346,273 by 1968.
The Dallas Morning News started to publish the Texas Almanac in 1904. The said Almanac was published intermittently by the Galveston Daily News during the 1800s. And after over a century of publishing the Almanac, the Morning News, decided to give the Almanac’s assets to the Texas State Historical Association as a gift in May 2008. The Dallas Morning News built, opened, and moved to a new office in the late 1940s. Their new headquarters included a vast newsroom and a printing plant, which was located at Houston and Young Streets, just southwest of downtown Dallas.
The Dallas Morning News monopolized the newspaper business in the Dallas market when the Dallas Times Herald closed in late 1991, after several years of circulation wars. In 2003, the Dallas Morning News began publishing a Spanish-language newspaper called Al Día. At first, Al Día had a purchase price, but the paper has been made available free of charge as the years passed. Al Dia was published every Wednesday and Saturday.
From 2003 to 2011, the Dallas Morning News published a tabloid-sized publication entitled Quick, and it initially focused on general news presents it in a quick-read, digest form. However, as the years passed, Quick started to cover mostly entertainment and lifestyle stories. During the latter part of 2013, The Dallas Morning News decided to end its longtime newsgathering collaboration with a TV station, WFAA.
In 2016 the Dallas Morning News announced that they would be moving away from its home of 68 years, and they are going to move to a building located on Commerce Street, which the Dallas Public Library previously used. The building on Commerce Street is one-third the size of the Dallas Morning News’ previous complex. Today, the printing is done at a facility located in Plano, Dallas.
In 2019, the Dallas Morning News management announced that they are going to make some significant changes, including staff layoffs, especially in the culture, arts, business, and editorial section. This change also aimed to reduce the paper’s Business section to a separate section that will be published every Sunday. This move affected about 43 Dallas Morning News employees.
In February 2019, the Dallas Morning News management decided not to renew the several printing agreements at the Morning News local printing plant, which affected about 92 jobs.
