Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal is a newspaper based in Lubbock, Texas, United States. It is owned by Gannett.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
The logo consists of a red circle on the far left containing two white lowercase letters "a" and "j" arranged diagonally, with a white line extending from the left edge of the circle with the "a" above and the "j" to its right. To the circle's right are the black words "Lubbock Avalanche-Journal" in serif and with the lowercase letters stylized to appear majuscule.
Photo of Lubbock Avalanche-Journal headquarters taken April 5, 2009.
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Gannett
Founder(s)John James Dillard, Thad Tubbs
EditorAdam Young[1]
FoundedMay 4, 1900 (1900-05-04) as The Avalanche
LanguageEnglish
Headquarters
CountryUnited States
Circulation7,260 (as of 2023)[2]
ISSN2331-6349 (print)
2331-6357 (web)
OCLC number13942131
Websitewww.lubbockonline.com

History

The Lubbock Avalanche was founded in 1900 by John James Dillard and Thad Tubbs. According to Dillard, the name "Avalanche" was chosen due to his desire that the newspaper surprise the citizens of Lubbock.[3] The newspaper was sold to James Lorenzo Dow in 1908. In 1922, the Avalanche became a daily newspaper (except for Mondays) and a year later added a morning edition.

In 1926, the owners of the rival Lubbock Daily Journal, editor Charles A. Guy and partner Dorrance Roderick, bought The Avalanche to form The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The pair partnered with Houston Harte and Bernard Hanks, later of Harte Hanks, as well as J. Lindsay Nunn of The Amarillo Daily News and Post. In 1928, Guy, Roderick, and Nunn bought control of the Avalanche-Journal from Harte and Hanks.[4] Guy was named editor and publisher in 1931 of The Avalanche-Journal, a position he held until 1972.[5] Other journalists to serve as editor were Jay Harris, Burle Pettit, Randy Sanders, Terry Greenberg, James Bennett, Jill Nevels-Haun and Adam Young.

The Amarillo Globe-News Publishing Company, headed by Eugene A. Howe and Wilbur C. Hawk, would later own the majority of The Avalanche-Journal. In 1951, the Whittenburg family in Amarillo acquired the Avalanche-Journal, after their Panhandle Publishing Company was merged with Globe-News company. In 1972, both The Avalanche-Journal and The Amarillo Globe-News were acquired by Morris Communications of Augusta, Georgia.[6]

On Tuesday, May 12, 1970, the day after a massive F5 tornado had devastated much of downtown Lubbock — including the Avalanche-Journal building at 8th Street and Avenue J — the newspaper managed to publish an eight-page edition by dictating reports to its sister paper, the Globe-News, in Amarillo, Texas. That morning a print run of 60,000 copies bearing the page-one headline "Twister Smashes Lubbock, 20 Dead, Hundreds Injured," the first printed news of the storm, went out from Amarillo, 100 miles north of Lubbock. The May 13 edition, listing names of the known dead, was published in the same manner, and by May 14 The Avalanche-Journal was again printed locally.[7]

During strikes over crop support prices in 1977, an editorial published in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal infuriated farmers, who blockaded the newspaper's delivery docks with their tractors. The unsigned editorial accused farmers of using the "anti-social tactics of union goons." Farmers demanded an apology and formed a tractor blockade, preventing trucks from delivering newspapers. Editor Jay Harris spoke with the farmers and indicated the editorial was not intended to imply that the farmers were goons.[8]

In 2008, The Avalanche-Journal led an investigation into the 1985 rape conviction of Tim Cole, a Texas Tech University student who had died in prison in 1999 at the age of thirty-nine. The A-J’s three-part series on Cole’s exoneration in light of DNA evidence, “Hope Deferred,” helped prompt a legislative ruling in Texas permitting posthumous pardons, and on March 1, 2010, Governor Rick Perry granted the state's first posthumous pardon to Cole.[9]

The Avalanche-Journal launched a full-color lifestyle publication, Lubbock Magazine, in April 2008. The magazine is published eight times a year.

In February 2011, The Avalanche-Journal became the first media company on the South Plains to launch an application for the iPad.[10]

In 2017, Morris Communications sold its newspapers to GateHouse Media.[11]

Journalists

Journalists who got their start at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal include CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley.

References
  1. Young, Adam (3 February 2018). "Lubbock Avalanche-Journal names Adam Young as editor". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. eISSN 2331-6357. ISSN 2331-6349. LCCN sn86088055. OCLC 13942131. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  2. "2023 Texas Newspaper Directory". Texas Press Association. Archived from the original on 2023-05-03. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  3. Hensley, Doug (17 May 2010). "Newspaper editors, publishers build Lubbock Avalanche-Journal into institution". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. eISSN 2331-6357. ISSN 2331-6349. LCCN sn86088055. OCLC 13942131. Archived from the original on 28 March 2023. Retrieved 28 March 2023.
  4. Logue Post, Sally Ann (1984). "5". With or Without Offense: Bernard Hanks and the Abilene Reporter-News (PDF) (M.A. thesis). Texas Tech University. pp. 49–50.
  5. "Chas. A Guy Retires to Close Long Career at A-J". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Oct 27, 1972. p. A-15.
  6. "Lubbock Avalanche-Journal". Texas Press Association. Archived from the original on December 12, 2013. Retrieved May 18, 2013.
  7. Tinnell, Jeff (May 6, 1990). "A-J's May 12 Edition Took the Long Way Home". Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
  8. "Farmers Block Newspaper". Ellensburg Daily Record. December 21, 1977.
  9. Elliott Blackburn, "Governor makes Cole pardon official", The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 2 March 2010.
  10. Terry Greenberg, "A-J's iPad app ready to come out of shadows", The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 6 February 2011.
  11. "Morris Announces Sale of Publications to Gatehouse Media". Morris Communications. 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2018-02-19.

Further reading
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