South Bend Tribune

Daily newspaper and news website based in South Bend, Indiana

The South Bend Tribune is a daily newspaper and news website which is based in South Bend, Indiana. It is distributed in South Bend, Mishawaka, north central Indiana, and southwestern Michigan. It has been named as a "Blue Ribbon Newspaper" (2006, 2016 and 2018) by the Hoosier State Press Association. It is the third largest daily broadsheet newspaper in the state of Indiana by circulation. The Tribune was locally and family owned by Schurz Communications and based in Mishawaka, for more than 146 years, from its founding in 1872 until 2019. Five generations of the family owned and operated the newspaper until The Tribune was sold to GateHouse Media on Feb. 1, 2019. In November 2019, GateHouse Media completed the purchase of the Gannett newspaper chain; the two combined newspaper chains use the Gannett name. On Nov. 19, 2019, the South Bend Tribune became a Gannett newspaper. Also in November 2019, the South Bend Tribune moved out of the Tribune Building at 225 W. Colfax Ave., which had been its home for 98 years. The Tribune Building was the newspaper's fourth location. The newspaper staff moved temporarily into Union Station Technology Center, 501 W. South St. in downtown South Bend, although most employees worked remotely during 2020 and early 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic. In August 2020, the South Bend Tribune moved into its new home in a former Studebaker Corp. assembly plant at 635 S. Lafayette Blvd. that is being renovated by entrepreneur Kevin Smith as part of South Bend's Renaissance District. The newspaper is printed at the Burnham Production Facility in Milwaukee. Because the University of Notre Dame is in South Bend, The Tribune receives large readership through its Notre Dame news and sports coverage. The Tribune also operates the Notre Dame sports website: "ND Insider." Alan Achkar is the executive editor.

Alfred B. ("Al" or "Alf") Miller and Elmer Crockett, Union veterans of the Civil War founded The Tribune in 1872 in South Bend, a manufacturing center on the St. Joseph River in northern Indiana. The Tribune was founded as a Republican newspaper. Miller and Crockett had worked together earlier at the St. Joseph County Register, a weekly newspaper based in South Bend that was owned by Schuyler Colfax, who served as Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives during the Civil War and then as vice president under Ulysses S. Grant. Miller was skilled in editing and writing, and Crockett was a mechanical man who handled the presses. The two were brothers in law; in 1868 Crockett married Miller's sister, Anna. The first four page edition of The Tribune was published on a Saturday evening, March 9, 1872. The Tribune's original printing offices were at 73 and 75 West Washington St. in downtown South Bend. Two other men from the Register held minor partnership roles in The Tribune at the start, but left within a few years: James H. Banning, a printer, and Elias W. Hoover, a wood engraver. In an editorial in the first edition, the editors wrote: "We know that in our four or five years' experience in the newspaper business in this city, its reading population has increased nearly one half, that the county has grown accordingly and that there is room for a journal like The Tribune, even more than there was room for two papers a dozen years ago. No city in the state is growing so rapidly as South Bend " The two men operated The Tribune together until Miller's death in 1892. The Tribune operated a book, stationery and art supply store in conjunction with the newspaper until 1902.

Frederick A. Miller, Alfred B. Miller's son, at age 24, became the Tribune's editor upon his father's death. The young Miller had started his career as a boy, learning to set type and carrying a route for the Tribune at age 12 in 1880, earning a 13 cent profit on the first day. He had graduated from South Bend High School in 1887 and on July 3 of that year joined his father's editorial staff. F. A. Miller served as editor and publisher of The Tribune from 1892 until his death at age 86 on Nov. 29, 1954. In a political philosophy inherited from his Civil War veteran father, F. A. Miller "ran The Tribune as a straight forward Republican organ. Unless a Republican candidate was an atrocious choice, or tied to an organization that Miller found obnoxious, such as the Ku Klux Klan, he could count upon The Tribune's endorsement," The Tribune reported of Miller in its March 9, 1972, centennial edition. Miller's editorial battles on the local scene were intense, especially against city administrations he regarded as corrupt, which tended to be Democratic. "In 1928 he conducted full scale war against the regime of Mayor Chester R. Montgomery, whom The Tribune accused of harboring gambling, liquor violations and prostitution," The Tribune reported in its centennial edition. Montgomery, fighting back, published a 76 page booklet as an open letter to the people of South Bend, titled "The Tribune F. A. Miller Menace." F. A. Miller hated mistakes in print. For years, there was a sign painted in large block letters on the newsroom wall, placed there by his orders, stating: "Be Accurate." He was exceedingly particular about the spelling of names, including the use of correct middle initials. Miller was a non smoker and banned smoking at The Tribune, but did not object to other forms of tobacco use. He also objected to alcohol use and banned all forms of its advertising in The Tribune and WSBT and WSBT TV, radio and televisions stations owned by The Tribune. Miller worked closely with Crockett, his father's original partner, until Crockett's death on June 3, 1924, at age 79. Miller received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1950. In April 1921, The Tribune moved to a newly built headquarters at 225 W. Colfax Ave. (the newspaper's fourth location since its founding), a building that would be expanded several times and serve as the newspaper's home base for 98 years. One of the first women reporters to earn a byline in the South Bend Tribune was Dorothea Kahn, a graduate of South Bend High School and the University of Chicago. She wrote a bylined feature story as a "girl reporter" about the Nov. 4, 1922 Notre Dame vs. Indiana University football game. In May 1923, Kahn wrote a bylined, multi part series about the "fast lives boys and girls of high school age are leading in South Bend" based on interviews with dozens of local youths. Kahn also served as the editor of the Tribune's women's pages and helped with the launch of the Tribune's radio station. By 1924, Kahn was a reporter on the Chicago staff of the Christian Science Monitor and later had a long career in that newspaper's Boston office. In 1921, the South Bend Tribune founded and began broadcasting from its own radio station. The station had the call letters WGAZ (for "Greatest Automotive Zone," a nod to the Studebaker vehicle company). The call letters later were changed to WSBT. The radio station's first studio was on the stage in the third floor auditorium of The Tribune building.