The Herald-Sun is an American, English language daily newspaper in Durham, North Carolina, published by the McClatchy Company.
History
The Herald-Sun began publication on January 1, 1991, as the result of a merger of The Durham Morning Herald (19191990) and The Durham Sun (19131990). The Herald-Sun and The Durham Morning Herald had previously been owned by the Rollins family of Durham, which had been in management positions since 1895. Edward Tyler Rollins Jr., former owner, board chairman and publisher of The Herald-Sun, died November 5, 2006, just shy of two years after selling to Paxton Media Group.
Early history
The Durham Morning Herald began publication in 1893, as a result of the reorganization of The Durham Globe from a daily to a weekly paper. Four former employees of the downsized Globe, itself an outgrowth of the merger of Durham's first daily, The Tobacco Plant and The Durham Daily Recorder, organized a competitor newspaper, The Globe Herald, which would soon be renamed The Morning Herald.
In 1929, the Durham Morning Herald Company acquired The Durham Sun, an evening daily that had been in publication in one form or another since 1889.
Merger
The late Rick Kaspar was the first person outside of the Rollins family to run the century-old newspaper. He was recruited by the Rollins Family to make changes and bring the company into the 21st century of newspaper publishing. In 1991, he successfully merged the Morning Herald and the Sun to form The Herald Sun. "Rick was devoted to his family, to his community and to his newspaper," noted Durham Herald Co. Chairman E.T. Rollins Jr.
Acquisition by Paxton Media Group
On December 3, 2004, The Durham Herald Co., the parent company of The Herald Sun and The Chapel Hill Herald announced that Paxton Media Group had purchased the company from the locally based Rollins family. The sum paid by Paxton was not publicly announced (the two companies are both privately held), but sources placed it at about $124 million. Pre-sale appraisals of the company had placed its value at roughly $70 million. The paper has constantly jettisoned employees while seeing its circulation dwindle dramatically ever since the sale.
First downsizing and reorganization
Upon assumption of operations, on January 3, 2005 Paxton's executives fired 81 of the newspaper's approximately 350 employees, including president and publisher David Hughey and longtime executive editor, vice-president Bill Hawkins, photographer Ross Taylor, editorial cartoonist John Cole and longtime columnist Jim Wise.
The firings were unexpected and abrupt, many employees being told they were fired upon returning from lunch, and then being escorted to the parking lot. The new editor, Bob Ashley said the job cuts were made because of financial reasons. He explained that fired employees were escorted from the building immediately due to security concerns and on the advice of the company's lawyers.
Second downsizing and reorganization
On July 30, 2008, Herald-Sun editor Bob Ashley announced a new round of staff layoffs and content reductions, citing the paper's poor revenues and admitting that the quality and quantity of the information presented in The Herald-Sun was not satisfying readers. Ashley also noted that a number of stand-alone feature sections would be consolidated into a nonetheless reduced metro section and that overall article length would be reduced, while the number of informational graphics and informational sidebars would increase, a move that appears to signal a further reduction in the depth of local and national reporting. According to Ashley, the shorter article length, along with the recent reassignment of two staffers to news reporting will increase local coverage, much like similarly promised increases in local reporting that followed on the heels of Paxton's earlier staff cuts at The Herald-Sun.
Third downsizing and reorganization
On May 15, 2009, there was yet another reduction that included seven members of the newsroom staff among others.
Fourth downsizing and shift to Kentucky production
On July 28, 2011, seven staff positions were eliminated from The Herald-Sun newsroom, leaving a fewer than 20 editorial staff positions at the Durham paper. In the course announcing the layoffs, Publisher Rick Bean also announced that, as of August 14, 2011, production duties, namely page design and copy editing, would be shifted from Durham-based staff to the staff of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, in Kentucky.