National Observer (United States)

For other uses, see National Observer (disambiguation).

The National Observer was a weekly American general-interest national newspaper published by Dow Jones & Company from 1962 until July 11, 1977.^[2][3] Hunter S. Thompson wrote several articles for the National Observer as the correspondent for Latin America early in his career.

National Observer

Owner(s)	Dow Jones & Company
Founder(s)	Bernard Kilgore[1]
Founded	February 4, 1962 (1962-02-04)
Ceased publication	July 11, 1977 (1977-07-11)
Headquarters	Washington, D.C.
Sister newspapers	Wall Street Journal
ISSN	0027-9803
OCLC number	1759309

The newspaper was the inspiration of Barney Kilgore, then the president of Dow Jones. (Kilgore is credited as the "genius" who transformed the Wall Street Journal from a provincial financial daily with a circulation of 32,000, mostly on Wall Street, into the national giant it became.)

It was Kilgore's idea that the nation needed a weekly national newspaper that would synthesize all the week's events and current trends into an attractive, convenient package. In effect, the National Observer would offer the kind of quality non-financial journalism that the Wall Street Journal once featured in its front-page "leaders" (the articles that occupy the left- and right-hand columns).^[4]

References

1. Kandel, Myron (9 Mar 2009). "Bookshelf; Making the News New; A portrait of the man who did so much to shape the modern Wall Street Journal". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
2. "Follow the Numbers: IN 125 YEARS, Dow Jones has grown into the definitive source of business journalism". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
3. Pardue, Mary Jane (1 July 2009). "The Wall Street Journal and the Invention of Modern Journalism". Newspaper Research Journal. 30 (3): 122–124. doi:10.1177/073953290903000310. S2CID 220080244.
4. Morton, John (December 2002). "Great While It Lasted". American Journalism Review. Archived from the original on June 6, 2011. Retrieved September 7, 2021.

Further reading

• Tofel, Richard J. Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and the Invention of Modern Journalism New York, NY.: St. Martins Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-312-53674-9