Description
Newark Advocate
In 1820, a 22-year-old local resident named Benjamin Briggs printed the first issue of the Newark Advocate in a wooden stilt shanty over a frog pond on the west side of what is now Newark's downtown square. Briggs, plagued with start-up problems, could only publish three issues in his first five months in business. However, within a year, he was publishing a four-page, four-column paper with the first page devoted to foreign news composed mostly of letters from other papers. During the middle of the century, the paper was a weekly edition, and served as an important regional news source during the American Civil War. In March 1882, the Advocate was sold to John A. Caldwell and soon became a daily newspaper. The local daily newspaper of Newark, Ohio is called The Newark Advocate and serves the general Licking County region. The Newark Advocate was purchased by the Gannett family of newspapers and periodicals since 2000. The Advocate is the last remaining daily newspaper in Newark, outlasting early Newark newspapers (all now defunct) included the Newark Weekly American, Newark Leader, and Newark American Tribune.