Fort Worth Star Telegram

November 30th, 2009 | jones | General

Fort Worth Star Telegram is the main daily newspaper issued in Fort Worth for the western part of North Texas with the eastern area dominated by the rival publication Dallas Morning News. As we’d expect a very tight competition has grown between the two newspapers that fight for distribution prerogatives over a part of the US. Presently, the Fort Worth Star Telegram is the property of The McClatchy Company, but its history goes back at the beginning of the 20th century when the first edition of the newspaper saw the light of the day. It all started with Amon G. Carter being hired as an advertising space salesman in Fort Worth, and in a few months he got to finance and run the town’s newspaper that finally came in print on February 1, 1906.

The initial name was the Fort Worth Star, and it did not have the success Carter had wished for. Given the fact that the newspaper was losing money severely, Carter came to the decision of buying its competitor the Fort Worth Telegram, and this is how the Fort Worth Star Telegram was founded at the beginning of 1909. Between 1923 and the aftermath of the Second World War, The Fort Worth Star Telegram covered one of the largest distribution areas in the South of the United States.

At the time, the Fort Worth Star Telegram was distributed around New Mexico, the West of Oklahoma and in West Texas. In 1948, the newspaper supported and actually put into practice the creation of the first television station in Texas, WBAP-TV. The Carter family continued to own the newspaper for other thirty years, but in 1974, they concluded the purchase transaction with Capital Cities Communications, the group that also got the ABC TV network. The Fort Worth Star Telegram changed owners again as the Capital Cities/ABC group was purchased by The Walt Disney Company.

Fort Worth Star Telegram

The McClatchy Corporation only took over the Star-Telegram in 2006. The circulation area of the publication is surely reduced as compared to its early days, but the situation is explainable given the large number of newspapers, magazines and tabloids that serve the American market daily. The Star-Telegram also has an online variant, and it is the oldest American publication with Internet operation. Presently, the Fort Worth Star Telegram undergoes various transformations meant to keep up with the evolution of the market both in the electronic and the paper format so that it may be perceived as both reader friendly and quality promoter.