The Lakeville Journal facts for kids

The Lakeville Journal is a newspaper that comes out once a week in Lakeville, Connecticut. It's published by The Lakeville Journal Company. This company also publishes the Millerton News. Before 2017, they also published the Winsted Journal, but it joined with the Lakeville Journal.

How the Journal Started

The Journal began in 1897. A person named Colvin Card started it. It was a weekly newspaper, meaning it came out every Saturday. At first, the Journal was quite small. It was in a farming town, and not many people bought it. In the early 1900s, it had fewer than a thousand readers.

The newspaper used a special system for national news. The first and last pages were made by a group that shared news with many papers. These pages also had ads for old-fashioned medicines. The pages in the middle were for local news written by the Journal staff.

New Owners and Growth

In 1905, Benjamin D. Jones bought the newspaper from Colvin Card. He became the only editor and publisher. Jones made some good changes. He brought in a modern printing machine called a Linotype press. This machine made printing much faster and easier.

Even with these changes, the newspaper had money problems. By 1937, when Jones passed away, only about 300 people subscribed to the Journal.

In 1940, a couple from New York, Elizabeth Ann and Stewart Hoskins, bought the paper. They wanted to make it a friendly "hometown paper" that focused on local stories. They did a great job! By 1948, the Journal was very popular. It won awards, including a top prize for being an excellent newspaper from the Connecticut Editorial Association. It also won an award for the Best Special Edition from the National Editors Association. Stewart Hoskins even became the president of the Connecticut Editorial Association.

The Estabrook Years

In 1971, Robert Estabrook and his wife bought the Journal. Robert Estabrook used to be a reporter and editor for a big newspaper called the Washington Post. Under his leadership, the Journal started to report on news in a more serious and in-depth way.

One important example was their reporting on the Peter Reilly case in 1973. An 18-year-old named Peter Reilly was accused of a crime. The Lakeville Journal kept reporting on the case with great effort and quality. Their work helped to find new information that showed Peter Reilly was innocent.

In 1978, Robert H. Estabrook received a special award called the John Peter Zenger award. This award was for his excellent reporting on the 1973 case. It recognized his "distinguished service in behalf of freedom of the press and the public's right to know." This means he helped make sure the public had the right to know the truth and that newspapers could report freely.

Later, from 1986 to 1991, a famous photographer named Glynne Robinson and Robert Hatch owned the Lakeville Journal and the Millerton News. Robert Hatch had worked with the Children's Television Workshop, which creates educational TV shows for kids. In 1995, they sold the papers to a group of people.

Over the years, different people became editors of the Journal. David Parker was editor in 1995, followed by Ruth Epstein in 1997. In 2005, Cynthia Hochswender became the executive editor, and Janet Manko became the publisher and editor-in-chief.

The Journal Today

In 2019, the company started a new way to get money. People in the community could donate to the newspaper. This helped because less money was coming from ads. In 2021, the company became a nonprofit organization. This means it's a group that works for the public good, not to make a profit.

The Lakeville Journal is celebrating its 125th year of publishing in 2022! They have many events planned to celebrate with the communities they cover.

• On August 13, the Salisbury Association in Salisbury, Connecticut, will open an exhibit called "Life of A Community: The Lakeville Journal Celebrates 125 years."
• On August 14, there will be a Salisbury Summer Fair on Academy Street in Salisbury.
• From August 17 to September 14, The Moviehouse in Millerton, New York, will show a series of popular movies about newsrooms.
• On September 16, the Salisbury Forum and Lakeville Journal Foundation will have a discussion about the future of journalism. A well-known investigative journalist named Brian Ross will lead the talk.
• September 17 is the Newsprint Jubilee, a big party to end the celebrations.

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