Our Mission and History

Mission - The Hutchinson News pledges to reveal and document the human condition in our time; to serve customers with quality and profitable news and information products; to be an effective link between advertisers and customers; and to practice a vigorous corporate citizenship on behalf of our customers and employees.

The Newspaper’s History - The Hutchinson News began July 4, 1872, when Houston Whiteside, a young Tennessee lawyer, published the first paper. The modern Hutchinson News dates to October 10, 1895, when W.Y. Morgan purchased The News after turning over the Emporia Gazette to William Allen White. By 1920, The News had a circulation of nearly 12,000 and was in a daily battle with The Hutchinson Gazette. In 1924, Morgan purchased the Gazette and renamed it the Herald. He published two papers, The Herald in the morning and The News at night, with separate staffs working in the same plant. When Morgan died in 1932, his wife took over the papers. A year later she sold the papers to Hutchinson Publishing Co., principal members of which were John P. and Sidney Harris. John P. Harris became publisher and circulation grew to 50,000. A Sunday paper was started in 1937 and the two papers were consolidated into The Hutchinson News-Herald in 1942. The newspaper moved to its current headquarters in 1957 and dropped Herald from the name. In 1965, The News won journalism’s most coveted award, the Pulitzer Prize for meritorious service, for its four-year editorial and court battle for reapportionment in Kansas. In August 1988, The News converted to an all-morning publication. The News employs approximately 135 full- and part-time employees in at least two locations, the Hutchinson plant and a Dodge City bureau staffed by circulation and editorial personnel.

Ownership - Hutchinson Publishing Company operates The Hutchinson News and The Bee, a shopper publication. Harris Enterprises Inc., a privately held corporation based in Hutchinson, owns Hutchinson Publishing Company. Employees, through an employee stock ownership plan, own a portion of Harris Enterprises Inc. Harris Enterprises Inc. operates five other daily newspapers - four in Kansas and one in Iowa – and MarketAide, an advertising and marketing firm in Salina. The four Kansas newspapers are the Garden City Telegram, Hays Daily News, Ottawa Herald, and Salina Journal. The Iowa newspaper is the Burlington Hawk Eye.