The current-day
Globe-News is a combination of several newspapers previously published in Amarillo. One began on November 4, 1909, as a
prohibition publication by the
Baptist deacon Dr. Joseph Elbert Nunn (1851 – 1938). In 1916, Nunn turned the
Amarillo Daily News into a general newspaper. Nunn also owned an electric company, and heavily invested in the
telephone company. He served on the boards of the Wayland Baptist College (now
Wayland Baptist University) in
Plainview, Texas, then at Texas Technological College (now
Texas Tech University). He went on to
Lubbock, Texas, with the Goodnight Baptist College in the now
ghost town of
Goodnight in
Armstrong County. The college and town were named for the legendary
Texas Panhandle rancher Charles Goodnight. In 1926, Eugene A. Howe and Wilbur Clayton Hawk bought the
Amarillo Daily News and merged it with their
Globe newspaper to form the
Amarillo Globe-News Publishing Company. The
Amarillo Times started on December 15, 1937, as an afternoon
tabloid newspaper. On December 2, 1951, the
Globe-News and
Times were merged into one company with the majority of the stock owned by the
Times'
Roy Whittenburg family, being published by Samuel Benjamin Whittenburg (1914 – 1992).
The Daily News continued as the morning newspaper, while the
Globe-News and
Times were merged into the afternoon
Globe-Times. The
Amarillo Globe-Times won the
1961 Pulitzer Prize for
Public Service for exposing government corruption in
Potter and
Randall counties. The organization noted the paper "expos[ed] a breakdown in local law enforcement with resultant punitive action that swept lax officials from their posts and brought about the election of a reform slate." The company also purchased
radio stations WDAG and KGRS (merging them to form
KGNC in 1935), and
NBC television station KGNC-TV (now
KAMR) in 1953. On September 1, 1972, Morris Communications bought the
Globe-News from the Whittenburg family. In 2001, the
Daily News and
Globe-Times merged into one morning edition, the
Globe-News. In 2017,
Morris Communications sold its newspapers to
GateHouse Media. The
Globe-News moved in September 2018 from the building it occupied since 1949 on South Harrison Street on the west side of downtown. The newspaper chose to move to the FirstBank Southwest Tower on Tyler Street a few blocks away. ==Journalists==