The Inquirer and Mirror

Infobox Newspaper
name = The Inquirer and Mirror


type = Weekly newspaper
format = Broadsheet
foundation = 1821
price =
owners = Ottaway Community Newspapers
(a News Corporation subsidiary)
publisher = Marianne Stanton
editor = Marianne Stanton
circulation = 30,000 "in-season" [ [http://www.ack.net/advertising.html Ack.net: Advertising] , accessed January 14, 2007. "In-season" refers to the summer.]
headquarters = 1 Old South Road, Nantucket, Massachusetts 02554 USA
website = [http://www.ack.net/ Ack.net]

"The Inquirer and Mirror", also called "The I&M", is the weekly newspaper of record on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Formerly owned for 30 years by the Giffin family (of which Marianne Stanton, the current publisher, is the daughter), "The I&M" was sold to Ottaway Community Newspapers, a division of Dow Jones & Company, now a News Corporation subsidiary, in 1990.Hanafin, Teresa M. "Ottaway Chain Buys Nantucket Newspaper." "The Boston Globe", March 16, 1990]

News Corp. bought Dow Jones & Company for US$5 billion in in late 2007. Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., reportedly told investors before the deal that he would be "selling the local newspapers fairly quickly" after the Dow Jones purchase."Ottaway Papers Might Be Sold, Including 16 in N.E.". [http://www.nepa.org/Bulletin%20Archives/NEPA_Bulletin_Dec07.pdf "NEPA Bulletin" (Boston, Mass.), December 2007] , page 3.]

Sisters and competitors

Although Ottaway also owns the Cape and Islands' daily newspaper, the "Cape Cod Times", "The I&M" is run independently of its sister newspapers, which also include "The Standard-Times" and its associated weeklies on the mainland, and the weekly "The Barnstable Patriot" on the Cape.

A former weekly competitor, the "Nantucket Beacon", went out of business in the mid-1990s after winning several awards soon after its 1988 founding. The "Beacon" had been criticized for sensationalism, but critics of "The I&M" said competition made the long-dominant paper try harder. [McGrory, Brian. "Nantucket Papers in Uncivil War." "The Boston Globe", August 13, 1994.]

Trivia

At the time of the newspaper's sale in 1990, its circulation was given as "about 8,500 copies most of the year, and nearly 11,000 in summer."

The Nantucket Historical Association claims that the original "Nantucket" limerick was published in "The I&M" of February 7, 1903. It was a "clean" version -- the racier ones, historians said, came later. The full original verse was:: There once was a man from Nantucket,: Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,:: But his daughter, named Nan,:: Ran away with a man,: And as for the bucket, Nantucket. [Parks, Vanessa. "There Once Was a Man from Nantucket ..." "The Boston Globe", September 24, 2000.]

"The I&M" Website, http://www.ack.net, takes its name from the IATA code of the island's only airport, ACK.

References