Gannett Co., Inc.is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia in Greater Washington DC. It is the largest U.S. newspaper publisher as measured by total daily circulation.
Its assets include the national newspaper USA Today, as well as several local newspapers, including the Detroit Free Press, The Indianapolis Star, The Cincinnati Enquirer, The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee, The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York, The Des Moines Register, The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Arizona, The News-Press in Fort Myers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Great Falls Tribune.
In 2015, Gannett split into 2 publicly traded companies, one focusing on newspapers and publishing and the other on broadcasting. The broadcasting company took the name Tegna, and owns approximately 50 TV stations. The newspaper company inherited the Gannett name. The split was structured so that Tegna is the legal successor of the old Gannett, while the new Gannett is a spin-off.
In Nov 2019, GateHouse Media merged with Gannett, creating the largest newspaper publisher in the United States, which adopted the Gannett name. Mike Reed was named CEO.
Gannett Company, Inc., was formed in 1923 by Frank Gannett in Rochester, New York, as an outgrowth of the Elmira Gazette, a newspaper business he had begun in Elmira, New York, in 1906. Gannett, who was known as a conservative, gained fame and fortune by purchasing small independent newspapers and developing them into a large chain, a 20th-century trend that helped the newspaper industry remain financially viable. By 1979, the chain had grown to 79 newspapers.
Gannett announced it would not be delaying print deadlines for the 2018 midterm elections in the United States, meaning that next-day newspapers would no longer contain the election’s results, instead directing readers to the Internet.
Gannett was sued in October 2019 by a former paperboy who accused the company of enabling a former district manager to sexually abuse him in the 1980s. This case is currently pending. Four more lawsuits have since been filed.
