The Huntsville Item is a five-day morning daily newspaper published in Huntsville, Texas, covering Walker County in East Texas. It is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.

The Huntsville Item
The Huntsville Item. (Huntsville, Tex.), Vol. 8, No. 45, Ed. 1 Saturday, July 24, 1858
TypeDaily newspaper
FormatBroadsheet
Owner(s)Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.
PublisherLange Svehlak
EditorBrenda Poe
Founded1850
Headquarters1409 Tenth Street
Huntsville, Texas 77342
United States
Circulation1,313 (as of 2023)[1]
ISSN0888-4145
Websiteitemonline.com

The Item's presses also print two college newspapers, The Battalion of Texas A&M University, and The Houstonian of Sam Houston State University.[2]

Being located in Huntsville, the location of Texas' execution chamber, The Item is one of two news organizations that (by order of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice) has a reserved spot to report on executions held in Texas (the Associated Press is the other).[3] The Huntsville Item is the only newspaper that reports on all executions in Texas regardless of the county of conviction.[4]

History

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Founded in 1850, The Item reportedly is the second oldest continuously published newspaper in Texas. It has been headquartered across from the old Huntsville post office, on the banks of Town Creek, since the late 1960s.[2]

The Woodall family sold the paper to Harte Hanks in the 1960s. Harte Hanks sold the paper to Media News Group in the early 1980s, which sold it to The Thomson Corporation in the late 1980s. The Thomson Corporation sold The Huntsville Item, along with 11 other papers, to the American Publishing Company (later Hollinger International) in 1995. Hollinger sold off most of its small papers in 1999, and The Huntsville Item went to Community Newspaper Holdings.

References

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  1. ^ "2023 Texas Newspaper Directory". Texas Press Association. Archived from the original on 2023-05-03. Retrieved 2023-05-03.
  2. ^ a b Itemonline.com: About Us, accessed January 20, 2007.
  3. ^ "Executive Directive on News Media Relations." (Archive) Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved on March 16, 2014. "C. A representative from the Associated Press (AP) and a representative from the Huntsville Item are guaranteed an opportunity to witness each execution."
  4. ^ Pérez-Peña, Richard (October 21, 2009). "One Reporter's Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions". The New York Times. nytimes.com. pp. A1. Retrieved October 22, 2009.
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