Founded in 1829, Stamford Advocate is a daily newspaper serving Stamford and the neighboring southwestern Connecticut towns of Darien and New Canaan. The paper has a strong focus on local news, sports and business. The paper also pays special attention to the workings of Metro-North Railroad, as many of its readers commute to work by train. The paper is owned by Hearst Communications, a multinational corporate media conglomerate with $4 billion in revenues.
In the early years of the newspaper, publisher Henry Holly promoted reading in the city by operating a circulating library out of his office, and encouraging citizens to visit the Ferguson Library, the first public library in Stamford. He also encouraged civic engagement by promoting voter registration, and running a series of articles on a variety of local issues. In 1892, the paper became a daily. Around the turn of the century it was renamed The Stamford Advocate. In 1977, the Gillespie family sold the paper to Times Mirror Company, owner of The Los Angeles Times. The following year, the Advocate moved to its current address at the corner of Tresser Boulevard and Washington Avenue in downtown Stamford. In June 2000, Tribune Company bought Times Mirror, incorporating The Advocate into its holdings. In May 2003, The Advocate started a sister paper in Norwalk.
The Ferguson Library has the Stamford Advocate on microfilm from 1829 to three months prior to the present. The LCCN number is Sn93053856.
This news source has a AllSides Media Bias Rating of Center. Sources with a Media Bias Rating of Center do not show much predictable bias, or they balance left and right perspectives fairly well. This does not necessarily mean that a source is totally unbiased, neutral or perfectly reasonable.
Hearst purchased the Advocate and its sister paper, the Greenwich Time, in November 2007. In 2008 Hearst began a major renovation of the newspaper’s offices, moving them from downtown Stamford, across from the Stamford Government Center, to the Riverbend complex in Springdale.
Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Center do not show much predictable media bias, or they display a balanced amount of articles with left and right perspectives. A Center bias doesn’t necessarily imply that an outlet is totally unbiased, neutral, or perfectly reasonable; it simply means that the average reader will find most of its content to be fairly balanced.