The Spokesman-Review

• 1. Introduction

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  The Spokesman-Review is the sole remaining daily newspaper in Spokane, Washington, and it has survived mergers, bombings, presidential condemnation, and the slow collapse of American print journalism. On the 29th of June, 1894, the paper first appeared under its current name, the product of a merger between two rival Spokane publications. More than a century later, it still lands on doorsteps across eastern Washington and northern Idaho.

  How does a family-owned paper in a mid-sized Pacific Northwest city endure all of that? And what happens when a newspaper becomes so embedded in local life that its critics wonder whether it controls the region as much as it covers it? Those questions sit at the heart of The Spokesman-Review's long run.

• 2. Two Papers Become One

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  The Spokane Falls Review began in 1883 as a joint venture between local businessman A.M. Cannon and two figures from The Oregonian, Henry Pittock and Harvey W. Scott. The Spokesman launched seven years later, in 1890. The two competed briefly before merging in 1893, and the resulting paper took the name The Spokesman-Review the following year.

  W.H. Cowles became owner of both The Spokesman-Review and its afternoon sister publication, the Spokane Daily Chronicle, in 1897. He steered the Chronicle toward editorial independence while guiding The Spokesman-Review to support Republican Party causes. Time magazine noted the papers' work in securing lower freight rates to the Northwest and in backing an improved park system.

  The Scripps League's Press closed in 1939, leaving Cowles as the only newspaper publisher in Spokane. He used that position to expand, founding four regional weeklies: the Idaho Farmer, the Washington Farmer, the Oregon Farmer, and the Utah Farmer. Cowles died in 1946, and his son William H. Cowles Jr. took over as publisher, with James Bracken gaining significant news and editorial authority as managing editor.

• 3. Chronicle's Long Goodbye

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  The Spokane Daily Chronicle had operated as a separate afternoon paper for decades, but its identity slowly dissolved through a series of quiet mergers with its morning sibling. The two papers combined their sports departments in late 1981, then folded their news staffs together in early 1983. In January 1982, the word "Daily" was quietly dropped from the Chronicle's name. The final edition of the Spokane Chronicle was printed on Friday, the 31st of July, 1992.

  For the years before that end, the two papers covered the same city from different angles: one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and both owned by the same family. Critics would later point to that arrangement as evidence of the Cowles family's concentrated grip on local media.

• 4. Controversy and Presidential Rebuke

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  The Spokesman-Review built part of its early reputation by opposing gambling, liquor, and prostitution, and it gained readers through that stance. Not all of its editorial positions proved as popular. The paper's opposition to building the Grand Coulee Dam drew criticism, and its resistance to both the New Deal and the Fair Deal drew the attention of President Harry Truman.

  During a visit to the region in 1948, Truman named The Spokesman-Review one of the two worst newspapers in the nation, pairing it with the Chicago Tribune. The paper did not shy from conflict. In 1997, three extreme-right militants were tried and convicted of bombing the paper's Spokane Valley office, along with an abortion clinic. That same year, a separate controversy arose over a public-private partnership involving River Park Square's parking garage, in which the Cowles family was alleged by some to have profited by as much as $20 million. The Washington News Council conducted an independent review and found the paper at fault for news bias in its coverage of that issue.

• 5. The Mayor West Sting

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  In 2004, The Spokesman-Review conducted a sting operation targeting Spokane mayor James E. West. Journalists and academics criticized the paper, with some characterizing the operation as a form of entrapment. The FBI later cleared West of criminal charges.

  Nevertheless, the political damage held. West lost a recall vote by Spokane citizens in December 2005. The following summer, he died of cancer. The episode fed ongoing debates about the power a single family-owned paper can exercise over a mid-sized city, especially when it is the only daily left standing.

• 6. Circulation, Contraction, and Survival

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  According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, as reported in the Puget Sound Business Journal on the 29th of April, 2010, The Spokesman-Review averaged a Sunday circulation of 95,939 and a weekly circulation of 76,291. That represented a year-over-year drop of roughly 10.5 percent, a decline mirrored across Washington newspapers that year.

  With the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ending its print edition, the paper became the third-largest in the state, behind the Seattle Times and The News-Tribune of Tacoma. A November 2007 newsroom downsizing had already shrunk the operation; the paper consolidated from three regional editions into a single zoned edition built around localized "Voices" sections staffed largely by non-union employees.

  Editor Rob Curley, hired in 2016, reversed some of that slide. A 2017 Rotary Club article noted that circulation climbed from 68,000 to 82,000 within a single year under his leadership. In April 2020, the paper cut its Saturday print edition entirely.

• 7. A Nonprofit Future

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  In 2025, the Cowles family announced it would donate The Spokesman-Review to the nonprofit Comma Community Journalism Laboratory. The transfer would end more than a century of family ownership and place one of the Pacific Northwest's oldest daily papers under a new kind of stewardship.

  Shortly after that announcement, Hagadone Media Group of Coeur d'Alene stepped in to handle printing after the paper's previous in-house printer, Northwest Offset Printing, announced it was ceasing operations. The Spokesman-Review, which still holds the third-highest readership among daily papers in Washington state, enters that next chapter as the only daily newspaper left in Spokane.