Message from the Record-Journal
President and Publisher The Record-Journal is celebrating its 150th birthday this year. As a member of the fourth generation of this local family business, I have been there almost half of that time, starting in 1952 at age five with Eliot C. White my father lighting the gas pots used to melt lead for typesetting on Sunday mornings, and playing in my mother’s office at home while she wrote editorials. We have a long, proud history as a local business following the motto on our previous building, “A free press for a free people” which is a cornerstone for a strong democracy. We are proud of RJ employees for their commitment and loyalty and salute our carriers and business partners in the role they play in delivering the news in print and online every day. We thank our readers and advertisers for supporting our business. This milestone has been marked in a number of ways all year, including news stories, historical look backs, a commemorative magazine, a brick program honoring our former building at 11 Crown Street in Meriden, and events including: • Employee and retiree parties • The 150th Celebration on The Meriden Green event on 9/17/17 open to the public in partnership with the Meriden YMCA and the City of Meriden • The 4 Chamber Celebration event on 11/15/17 to thank the business community. The four chambers of commerce partnering with us are Midstate, Quinnipiac, Southington and Cheshire. 11 Crown Street was the RJ headquarters
for 110 years until October 2015. All five generations of my family worked there as owners of the business. Although bittersweet, we transitioned from 11 Crown Street to a modern office space at 500 S. Broad Street. The old building served us well, but it was appropriate timing for us as we honor the past and celebrate the present and future. We look back with fondness and great memories — highlighted in a timeline of major events and strategies in our history — included in this magazine and on the 150th video that can be found at myrecordjournal.com/150. Over the course of our history, we have produced 41,000 straight editions without interruption. This is a remarkable feat, particularly when considering the many obstacles in the 1980s and 1990s that made us feel like we were in the roadrunner cartoon. Despite floods and numerous power outages in addition to blizzards, ice storms, hurricanes and mechanical problems, we were able to deliver a newspaper every day. Approximately 4,000 people have worked at the RJ since 1867. The collaborative efforts of these professionals bring to mind words such as proud, dedicated, resilient, persistent, ethical, smart, loyal and teamwork. These traits are evident every day as each department meets its daily deadline. For print, a rough calculation indicates that about 1 billion individual copies of our paper have been sold over 150 years, delivered by 50,000 news carriers, most of them youth carriers age 12 to 14. Digitally, we set a new monthly record recently with over 2,800,000 page views per month and 358,000 unique visitors. With print and digital combined, we now have our largest audience ever. Change has been constant in our business, particularly over the last 40 years.
ELIOT C. WHITE President & Publisher 2017 New England Newspaper & Press Association Hall of Fame 2013 Yankee Quill Award from New England Newspaper & Press Association for lifetime achievement for broad influence for good in the field of journalism 1993 Meriden Boys Club Hall of Fame
RJ BY THE NUMBERS 41,000 Record-Journal editions without missing a publication day 4,000 Number of RJ employees who have worked since 1867 1,000,000,000 Copies of the paper sold over 150 years 50,000 Newspaper carriers since 1867 2,800,000 Page views per month on myrecordjournal.com, a new monthly record 358,000 Unique visitors per month on myrecordjournal.com