The
News & Observer traces its roots to
The Sentinel, which was founded by the Rev. William E. Pell in 1865 and who used, "the newspaper to fight against the domination of
carpetbaggers and other forces during Congressional
Reconstruction." In 2006, on occasion of the release of the report of the 1898 Wilmington Race Riot Commission, the newspaper offered "an apology for the acts of someone [Daniels] we continue to salute in a different context…and for the misdeeds of the paper as an institution." The newspaper published a 16-page special report on the events of 1898. In 1968, the Daniels family hired
Claude Sitton, who had been a correspondent for
The New York Times and later an editor there. Serving as the editorial director of the paper, he promoted
The News and Observer as a government watchdog and moved the news of the paper away from the personal and partisan stances it had taken under
Josephus Daniels. However, its editorials were still often aligned with the Democratic Party, a party that in 1968 held different positions on integration than the party of Josephus Daniels' day. A year later, the
Mini Page children's supplement was created and published. Today, it is one of America's most widely used children's newspaper supplements. In 1971, Sitton became the editor and the paper began buying and publishing smaller local newspapers, starting with
The Island Packet in
Hilton Head, South Carolina and
The Cary News in
Cary, North Carolina. Throughout the early 1990s,
The News & Observer divested itself of various local newspapers in South Carolina and the North Carolina mountains, and by September 1993, Sunday sales of
The News & Observer reached 200,000 for every week. However, the newspaper still owns
The Cary News,
Chapel Hill News, and the
Smithfield Herald among other newspapers. In 1994, the paper created
Nando.net, becoming an Internet service provider and began publishing the
NandO Times online newspaper. In 1999,
The News & Observer was named one of America's 100 best newspapers by the
Columbia Journalism Review, and one of the 17 best-designed newspapers in the world by the
Society for News Design. In 2004,
The News & Observer along with three other news publishers filled suit against the
Raleigh–Durham International Airport for preventing the company from adding new newspaper racks in the terminal. After appeal, a 2010 decision from the
Fourth Circuit determined that the restriction was a violation of the
first amendment because it put a restriction on expression. In September 2008, the
News and Observer offered buyouts to all 320 newsroom employees, approximately 40% of its staff, in an effort to cut expenses. Previously the company had shut down its Durham news bureau and in a separate event laid off 70 employees. Layoffs and buyouts have continued since then. In 2015 the newspaper announced it would sell its facility in downtown Raleigh for redevelopment, which will entail demolition of much of the facility. New presses will be installed at the newspaper's auxiliary production facility in
Garner. Editorial offices will remain in a portion of the redeveloped facility. In March 2020,
The News and Observer moved to a six day printing schedule, eliminating its printed Saturday edition. By June 2021, the paper only employed 64 reporters. == Awards ==