Democrat and Chronicle

• 1. Rochester's Lone Daily

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  The Democrat and Chronicle started life in 1833 under a name that no longer survives: The Balance. That founding name did not last long. The paper reinvented itself, absorbed a rival, and eventually became the sole daily newspaper in Rochester, New York. How a publication born on Rochester's 19th-century press landscape became the last one standing is one story worth following. What its decades as the flagship of a national newspaper chain cost it in scale and independence is another. And running through the 21st century is a legal battle over allegations that the paper's own management was accused of suppressing.

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• 2. The Merger That Named It

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  By the mid-19th century, the paper had settled on a new identity as the Daily Democrat. The Daily Democrat was not the only newspaper operating in Rochester. In 1870, it merged with a local competitor called the Chronicle. The combined paper took both names. That name has endured for more than 150 years since. The 1870 merger removed one voice from the city's newspaper landscape. That pattern would repeat on a far larger scale in the decades ahead.

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• 3. Gannett's Flagship

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  In 1928, the Democrat and Chronicle was purchased by Gannett. Gannett would eventually become one of the largest newspaper chains in the United States. Before 1959, the paper's offices were at 59-61 East Main Street, on Rochester's Main Street Bridge. In 1959, the paper relocated to the Gannett Building at 55 Exchange Boulevard. There it shared space with the Times-Union, an afternoon daily also published by Gannett. From 1928 through 1985, the Democrat and Chronicle held the distinction of being Gannett's flagship paper. In 1985, Gannett moved its own corporate headquarters to Tysons Corner, Virginia, the home of USA Today. With the parent company's center of gravity now far from Rochester, the Democrat and Chronicle began absorbing its afternoon counterpart. The two staffs merged formally in 1992. The Times-Union's print circulation ended in 1997. That same year, newspaper production moved out of the Gannett Building to a facility in Greece, New York. Among the notable contributors who wrote for the Democrat and Chronicle were Earl Caldwell, Henry W. Clune, Arch Merrill, and Manuel Rivera-Ortiz. Photojournalist Marie D. De Jesus and Michael Walsh also wrote for the paper. W. D. Storey served as editor-in-chief, and Brian Rooney went on to become a correspondent for ABC News. The paper now printed from Greece, New York, but its long association with 55 Exchange Boulevard was not quite over.

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• 4. Moving to Midtown

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  In May 2016, the Democrat and Chronicle left the Gannett Building and moved its headquarters to the Midtown Plaza site on East Main Street. The old building measured 153,350 square feet. The new headquarters covered 42,000 square feet, less than a third of the space the paper had vacated. The Gannett Building space had become expensive to maintain. The section that once held printing presses had been cleared before 1996. The move brought new branding: the outlet adopted the name D&C Digital, emphasizing its digital marketing services and video properties. That rebranding came while the paper was performing well among its local readers. In 2010, the Democrat and Chronicle ranked first among all US newspapers in market penetration. That measure tracks the share of readers in a metro area who access a paper either in print or online. The paper held that top ranking for several years, and had been among the leaders in that measure since the 1990s. In 2023, the paper announced that its printing operation in Greece, New York would move to Rockaway, New Jersey. The relocation was planned for April of that year.

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• 5. The Former Paperboys

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  In late 2018, a man who had worked as a paperboy for the Democrat and Chronicle contacted the paper's investigative reporters by email. He alleged that a former district manager had sexually abused him in the 1980s, when he was a child. He was asking the reporters to investigate. Karen Magnuson, then Executive Editor for Gannett's Democrat and Chronicle, instructed reporters to pause their investigation of those claims. She then brought the email to Gannett's management. Gannett's COO, Michael G. Kane, sent the claimant a letter. The letter stated that no evidence had been found and that the matter was being closed out. New York then passed the Child Victims Act, which lifted the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims. In October 2019, the former paperboy filed suit against the Democrat and Chronicle and Gannett. Four more lawsuits were filed in early 2020. Three additional men brought suit against Gannett in September 2020. The window for filing claims under the Child Victims Act closed in August 2021. Before it closed, a ninth man filed suit in Rochester, alleging abuse by the same former district manager. The plaintiffs had been between 11 and 14 years old at the time of the alleged abuse. In July 2022, Gannett's defense attorneys moved to take the cases out of New York state court. They sought to redirect them to the New York Workers' Compensation Board. The attorneys argued that the former paperboys had been employees of the newspaper. On that basis, they argued the plaintiffs should have filed for workers' compensation when the abuse occurred. Alternatively, they said, the plaintiffs could have filed when the Child Victims Act took effect in 2019. In December 2022, Judge Deborah A. Chimes accepted Gannett's motion. She referred the plaintiffs' cases to the Workers' Compensation Board. New York State charges that board with administering workers' compensation, disability benefits, and Paid Family Leave. The board has no established mechanism for the kind of claims the Child Victims Act addresses. On the 26th of July 2024, the Fourth Judicial Department of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court reversed Judge Chimes's ruling. The nine plaintiff cases returned to Judge Chimes's court, where they remain pending.

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