San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is a daily newspaper in San Antonio, Texas. It is owned by the Hearst Corporation and has offices in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The Express-News is the third largest newspaper in the state of Texas, with a daily circulation of nearly 100,000 copies in 2016. The newspaper's online presence includes both the subscription version of the San Antonio Express-News and the ad-supported mySA. History The paper was first published in 1865 as a weekly tabloid-style newspaper under the name The San Antonio Express. At that time, the city had already had a number of other newspapers in a number of different languages. However, all the other publications went out of business, leaving only the Express to serve the city. In December 1866, the Express made the move from a weekly paper to a daily newspaper, and expanded into a full newspaper by the early 1870s. The early days of the Express was marked by several leadership changes which almost doomed the paper, until a brand new company, the Express Printing Company, took control in 1875. The Express eventually became a daily morning newspaper in 1878. In January 1881, a new rival newspaper, the Evening Light, was first published by A. W. Gifford and J. P. Newcomb, who had been an early investor in the Express. The Evening Light was published as an afternoon paper, as opposed to the morning Express. At first, the editors of the Express chose to ignore the upstart paper, but the Light soon grew in popularity at the turn of the 20th century. In 1906 the Daily Light was sold to E. B. Chandler, and in 1909 the Daily Light Publishing Company bought the San Antonio Gazette. From then until 1911 the paper was referred to as the Light and Gazette. Edward S. O'Reilly, known as Tex, was at one time managing editor. In 1911 Harrison L. Beach and Charles S. Diehl, veteran correspondents of national standing, moved to San Antonio and bought the Light and Gazette. Once again it was known as the Light. Diehl was a founder of the AP wire service. Beach and Diehl installed leased wire news service and published the first full stock market reports in a San Antonio paper. The Light became liberal-Democratic in its political views. While Beach and Diehl ran the paper, circulation increased from 11,000 to 25,000 copies daily. In 1918, the Express ownership, now renamed Express Publishing Company, launched its own afternoon paper, the San Antonio Evening News. Soon thereafter, a rivalry developed between workers of the Express and the News. In fact, some News workers dubbed a new office building as the News-Express building. In 1924, however, William Randolph Hearst bought the Light and instituted Hearst policies, and by 1945 the circulation was approximately 70,000. Eudochia Bell Smith, who later became a state legislator in Colorado edited the paper's society section. The 1920s was marked by expansion by Express Publishing as the company started one of the city's first radio