The Oklahoman

• 1. Introduction

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  The Oklahoman has been Oklahoma's largest daily newspaper since it was founded in 1894, and at various points in its history it has been called both a pillar of civic life and, bluntly, the worst newspaper in America. That second verdict came from the Columbia Journalism Review in 1999, and it landed hard. But the paper had survived ownership changes, wars, the rise of television, and the collapse of print advertising long before that critique appeared. How a single newspaper managed to outlast every rival in the state, irritate readers and journalism critics in equal measure, and still produce award-winning work is the thread running through more than a century of Oklahoma history. Along the way, one family's grip on the paper lasted longer than most people's entire careers, a rookie cartoonist won one of journalism's highest honors with a single image, and a Twitter handle vanished into the hands of a stranger.

• 2. The Gaylord Century

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  Edward K. Gaylord took control of The Daily Oklahoman in 1903, and what followed was one of the longest single-family runs in American newspaper history. Gaylord held the paper for 71 years, steering it through the oil booms and busts that defined Oklahoma's economy, before dying at the age of 101. His son, Edward L. Gaylord, picked up where he left off, managing the paper from 1974 to 2003. After that, Christy Gaylord Everest, granddaughter of E. K. Gaylord, served as chairwoman and CEO, assisted by her sister Louise Gaylord Bennett. The Gaylord name remained on the masthead, in spirit if not in title, until the sale to Philip Anschutz in 2011.

  E. K. Gaylord's ambitions extended well beyond ink on paper. In 1928, he purchased WKY, Oklahoma's first radio station. More than two decades later, he signed on WKY-TV, now known as KFOR-TV, the first television station in the state. At its peak, the broadcasting empire stretched across six television stations and five radio stations. Nearly all of those holdings were sold off by 1996, though the paper kept WKY radio until 2002.

  In 1916, the paper absorbed the failing Oklahoma Times and ran it as an evening publication for 68 years. The final edition of that evening paper rolled off the press on the 29th of February 1984, and the March 1 issue folded it into The Daily Oklahoman for good.

• 3. From Small to Anschutz

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  Sam Small founded The Daily Oklahoman in 1889 in Oklahoma City. Small eventually lost control of the paper; a bank acquired it and leased operations to Charles F. Barrett. R. Q. Blakeney also ran the paper before Roy E. Stafford and W. T. Parker purchased it in 1900, setting the stage for Gaylord's takeover three years later.

  Philip Anschutz, a Denver-based businessman, became the paper's owner when his Anschutz Corporation bought all Oklahoma Publishing Company assets in October 2011. The acquisition was announced on September 15 of that year. Anschutz already owned other papers, including The Gazette of Colorado Springs and the Washington Examiner, making The Oklahoman part of a broader media portfolio.

  Anschutz's tenure lasted less than a decade. In 2018, he sold The Oklahoman Media Company portion of OPUBCO to GateHouse Media for $12.5 million. That transaction marked the first time in the newspaper's history that it was owned by a publicly traded company. GateHouse was itself owned by Fortress Investment Group and its investor SoftBank. Then, on the 11th of November 2019, GateHouse and Gannett announced that GateHouse would acquire Gannett and take the Gannett name. The merger closed on the 19th of November 2019, and the 20th of November 2019 issue of The Oklahoman, bearing volume number 129,323, was the first to list Gannett as the copyright owner.

• 4. The Pulitzer Cartoon

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  In 1939, Charles George Werner, a rookie political cartoonist working at The Oklahoman, won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Werner's winning piece, titled "Nomination for 1938", depicted the Nobel Peace Prize resting on a grave marked "Czechoslovakia 1919-1938." The cartoon was published on the 6th of October 1938, and its target was the Munich Agreement, signed just days earlier, which had handed the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany.

  Werner was not yet an established name when he drew the image. His win remains one of the more striking examples of a first-year journalist producing work significant enough to earn journalism's most prestigious recognition. Another cartoonist, Jim Lange, took a longer view of his career at the paper: Lange worked there for 58 years and produced more than 19,000 cartoons over that span.

• 5. Controversies and Critics

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  A 1998 American Journalism Review survey gave the paper a mixed verdict: it acknowledged The Oklahoman's contributions as a corporate citizen, but described the paper as plagued by understaffing, uninspired work, and political bias. The Columbia Journalism Review followed a year later with a sharper blow, calling it the "Worst Newspaper in America." The CJR's case rested on three charges: the paper's alignment with the right-wing political views of the Gaylord family, alleged racist hiring practices, and the high cost of advertising.

  On the 1st of May 2014, the sports section published the headline "Mr. Unreliable" about Kevin Durant's performance against the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2014 NBA Playoffs. The headline drew criticism from a national audience. Sports Director Mike Sherman issued an apology.

  On the 3rd of June 2020, the editorial board published an opinion piece about the George Floyd protests that included the word "thuggish" in its headline. After significant public backlash, the editorial board again issued an apology. Both incidents followed the same pattern: a headline that the newsroom ultimately disowned, a public response, and a formal retraction of the language used.

• 6. Circulation and Digital Struggles

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  In November 2008, The Oklahoman pulled back its delivery footprint, limiting circulation to roughly the western two-thirds of the state rather than covering it statewide. Halting delivery in Tulsa alone cut about 7,000 homes from the subscriber count. Two months later, in January 2009, the paper announced a content-sharing arrangement with the Tulsa World, agreeing to carry some of each other's material and reduce duplication, such as having reporters from both papers cover the same routine events.

  The numbers tell a stark story about the pace of decline. In 2018, the paper reported an average paid circulation of 92,073, with digital subscriptions accounting for 20,409 of that figure. By 2022, according to a Gannett annual report, daily subscribers had fallen to 25,304. That is a drop of roughly two-thirds in four years.

  In 2010, the paper drew attention for a different reason, launching what it described as the first iPad app for a newspaper company of its size in the United States. NewsOK, the paper's digital brand, had been operating since the 19th of August 2001, originally as a joint venture with KWTV-DT before OPUBCO took full control in 2008. The Oklahoman announced it would retire the NewsOK brand and redirect all NewsOK.com URLs to Oklahoman.com on the 22nd of May 2019. As of the 9th of June 2020, NewsOK branding was still visible across multiple sections of the site, including in the favicon.

  In November 2019, while attempting to merge two Twitter accounts, @NewsOK and @TheOklahoman, the paper lost control of both handles to an unknown third party. The newspaper was forced to adopt @TheOklahoman_ as its official account, the underscore a small but permanent reminder of the mishap.

• 7. Offices and Operations

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  The Oklahoman's current offices sit at 100 W. Main in the Century Center office building in downtown Oklahoma City, connected to the Sheraton Hotel. Getting back downtown took more than two decades. OPUBCO left its original headquarters at N.W. 4th Street and Broadway in 1991, moving to a 12-story tower at Broadway Extension and Britton Road in the northern part of the city. That building was sold to American Fidelity Assurance in 2012. The newspaper's staff returned to downtown in early 2015, ending a 23-year absence.

  In 2016, printing and production moved out of the Broadway Extension facility and over to The Tulsa World. The closure of the Oklahoma City production plant came with 130 layoffs. Pre-production and layout work was shifted to the GateHouse Media-owned Center for News and Design in Austin, Texas. The former plant was razed by American Fidelity Assurance, and new construction was underway on the site as of 2021.

  In 2021, the newsroom staff temporarily vacated 100 W. Main for renovations after Griffin Communications, which had purchased the building, moved KWTV-DT News9 into the space. The Oklahoman rented back part of the building from the new owners and has remained there since. By March 2022, the paper moved to a six-day printing schedule, dropping the Saturday print edition entirely, a sign of where print journalism was headed across the industry.