In addition to fielding complaints about news coverage, I frequently find myself looking for answers to questions readers have about The Courant. This week’s column is devoted to a few questions that readers asked over the past few months.
The Courant as compost
Q: “I am interested in composting a portion of our newspapers for both vegetable and flower gardens…. Can you please tell me what chemical substances are found in the printed newspaper? Is the ink petroleum-based or soy-based?.” — K.W.
A: Andrea Pape, director of production, said The Courant uses some inks that are petroleum-based and some that are soy-based. “The black ink is not 100 percent soy-based, although it does contain some soy component. The color inks are all 100 percent soy-based,” she said.
She warned, though, that “the newsprint itself would be made with some chemicals, especially the recycled portion of the fibers that need to be bleached to be reused. Finally, the water that is used as part of the offset process would contain some chemicals, such as surfactants, to make it more effective in repelling the oil-based ink. Most people who use newsprint in gardening have found it to be effective in blocking weeds, but as far as for compost (that is, to feed and nourish), I would not think there is anything of value in the newsprint or the ink.”
A spokesperson for Abitibi Consolidated, Belgo of Quebec, Canada — a supplier of The Courant’s newsprint – concurred that using newsprint as compost probably doesn’t help much.
Anonymous opinions
Q: Why are editorials anonymous?
A: This question isn’t attributed to a particular reader because it is asked so often. The entire Jan. 9 Commentary section was devoted to illustrating how the editorial page works. It explained that the opinions published on the editorial page are formulated at editorial board meetings held three times a week “and generally reflect the collective wisdom, or rashness, of that group.” The section also explained that the writers do not sign the editorials because “the ultimate responsibility rests with President, Publisher and Chief Executive Officer Jack W. Davis Jr., assisted by Deputy Editorial Page Editor Robert K. Schrepf, the manager in charge of the editorial department.”
Old newspapers
Q: “I see where The New York Post and The Courant both claim to be oldest continuously published newspaper in America. Which one is the oldest?” — Anonymous caller
A: The key word is “daily.” The Courant’s nameplate includes the phrase “America’s Oldest Continuously Published Newspaper.” The New York Post’s editorial page says “America’s oldest continuously published daily newspaper.”
In 2001, the Post celebrated the 200th anniversary of its founding as the New York Evening Post by the first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton.
Thomas Green introduced The Connecticut Courant as a weekly on Oct. 29, 1764. That issue, No. 00, was a prospectus that promised the first issue would appear on Nov. 19, 1764. It may have, but the first issue known to still be in existence is dated Dec. 3, 1764, No. 2, according to The Courant’s head librarian, Kathy McKula, and the Library of Congress. The newspaper went daily in 1837.
But then there’s the New Hampshire Gazette, which also declares that it is “the nation’s oldest newspaper.” The Gazette’s history states that it was founded in Portsmouth, N.H., on Oct. 7, 1756, becoming the oldest newspaper in America in 1839, when the Maryland Gazette folded. “For the next 121 years, our seniority went unchallenged; every standard text on the history of newspapers, from Frederic Hudson’s Journalism in the United States (1873) to Frank Luther Mott’s American Journalism (1941), cited Daniel Fowle’s New Hampshire Gazette, founded in Portsmouth in 1756, as the oldest paper in the country,” states the newspaper’s website (www.nhgazette.com).
In 1960, the Gazette was published on Saturdays, as a weekly supplement to the daily Portsmouth Herald. That arrangement dated back to the 1890s. When the Saturday paper was renamed the Herald Weekend Edition, the masthead noted it was “Continuing the New Hampshire Gazette.” On May 1, 1989, the paper regained its independence and “for the next 10 years it was published episodically with a press run of only a few hundred copies.” The Gazette is now published on alternate Fridays.
