# CTNow
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{{Short description|Newspaper published in Hartford, Connecticut}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{italic title}}
{{Infobox company
| name = CTNOW
| logo =
| type = [Private](/source/Private_company)
| founded = 1973
| hq_location = 121 Wawarme Avenue, [Hartford](/source/Hartford%2C_Connecticut), [Connecticut](/source/Connecticut), United States
| num_locations =
| key_people =
| area_served = [Connecticut](/source/Connecticut)
| industry =
| products = [Alternative weekly](/source/Alternative_newspaper)
| services =
| revenue =
| operating_income =
| net_income =
| num_employees =
| parent = [Hartford Courant](/source/Hartford_Courant)
| divisions =
| subsidiaries =
| slogan =
| website = {{URL|ctnow.com}}
| footnotes =
}}
'''''CTNow''''' is a free weekly newspaper in central and southwestern [Connecticut](/source/Connecticut), United States, published by the ''[Hartford Courant](/source/Hartford_Courant)''.
The previous iteration of CTNow was New Mass. Media, a privately owned weekly newspaper company until 1999, when its owners, including founding publisher Geoffrey Robinson, sold the company to ''[The Hartford Courant](/source/The_Hartford_Courant)'' for an undisclosed sum. A year later, ''Courant'' parent company [Times-Mirror](/source/Los_Angeles_Times) was bought by the ''[Tribune Company](/source/Tribune_Company)'', based in [Chicago](/source/Chicago). In 2013, the ''Hartford Advocate'', ''New Haven Advocate'', and ''Fairfield County Weekly'' were merged with the ''Courant''{{'}}s calendar section and website CTNow to create the weekly paper CTNow.[{{cite web|url=http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/new_haven_advocate_1975-2013/|title=New Haven Advocate, 1975-2013|author=Paul Bass|work=New Haven Independent|date=15 August 2014}}]
== History ==
The company was founded in 1973 by Geoffrey Robinson and Edward Matys, then copy editors at ''[The Hartford Courant](/source/The_Hartford_Courant)''. Robinson, a native of [New Haven, Connecticut](/source/New_Haven%2C_Connecticut), worked as wire service editor of the daily ''Lorain Journal'' of Ohio after his graduation from [Yale University](/source/Yale_University) in 1971. Matys had worked in editorial positions at several Massachusetts and Connecticut newspapers.
The pair began publishing the ''Valley Advocate'', a bi-weekly serving [Western Massachusetts](/source/Western_Massachusetts), in September 1973 from small basement offices in [Amherst, Massachusetts](/source/Amherst%2C_Massachusetts). In September 1974, the ''Valley Advocate'' began publishing weekly; Robinson and Matys opened offices in [Hartford](/source/Hartford%2C_Connecticut) and started publication of the ''Hartford Advocate''. A year later, in September 1975, the pair began publishing the weekly ''New Haven Advocate'' and in 1978 started publication of the ''Fairfield County Advocate'' (subsequently renamed ''Fairfield County Weekly'' to avoid confusion with the neighboring and unrelated [Stamford ''Advocate''](/source/The_Advocate_(Stamford))).
In 1999, the four-paper chain was sold to Times-Mirror, which was itself acquired by Tribune in 2000. Tribune announced in December 2007 that it would sell the ''Valley Advocate'', its only [Massachusetts](/source/Massachusetts) publication, to [Newspapers of New England](/source/Newspapers_of_New_England).[Cain, Chad. "Gazette's Owners Set to Buy Valley Advocate". ''Daily Hampshire Gazette'' (Northampton, Mass.), December 12, 2007.]
== Former properties ==
''Advocate'' weeklies offered [investigative journalism](/source/investigative_journalism), national, state and local political coverage, commentary, and arts features and criticism, mostly from a [liberal](/source/Social_liberalism) or [countercultural](/source/counterculture) point of view. They shared some editorial content, but each had regionally focused news and opinion pieces, restaurant reviews, event listings, and advertisements. The newspapers had annual "Best Of" write-in contests, and subsequent issues that featured the winning businesses.
The ''Advocates'' accepted a wider variety of advertisements than mainstream newspapers, including ads for [strip club](/source/strip_club)s, [erotic massage](/source/erotic_massage) services, [adult book and video stores](/source/pornography), and the like, which columnists and readers argued conflict with the newspapers' avowed [feminism](/source/feminism).
===''Fairfield County Weekly''===
The ''Fairfield County Weekly'' was distributed throughout [Fairfield County](/source/Fairfield_County%2C_Connecticut). Its average weekly circulation was 26,708 in 2011.{{citation needed|date=August 2012}}
===''Hartford Advocate''===
125px|thumb|Hartford AdvocateThe ''Hartford Advocate'' was published in [Hartford, Connecticut](/source/Hartford%2C_Connecticut) and had a circulation of 37,779 in 2011.{{citation needed|date=August 2012}}
The ''Hartford Advocate'' was founded in 1974 by Geoffrey Robinson and Edward Matys to fill a void in investigative and beat reporting in the capital city of Connecticut. For example, ''[The Hartford Courant](/source/The_Hartford_Courant)'', where Robinson and Matys had previously worked, did not routinely cover one of the city's largest industries, [insurance](/source/insurance). The founding editors included managing editor Dick Polman, recruited from the ''[New London Day](/source/New_London_Day)'', and city editor Bruce Kauffman, from the ''Courant'' where as a police and general assignment reporter he discovered that a heavily traveled bridge around the corner from the state capitol was being held up by a telephone pole.{{citation needed|date=April 2012}}
[Gail Collins](/source/Gail_Collins_(journalist)) reported on state government and politics; she is now an op-ed columnist at ''[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)''. Another early reporter was David Lieberman, who was later an editorial writer for the ''Courant'' and covered the media business for ''[USA Today](/source/USA_Today)''.
Polman left the ''Advocate'' after some five years to become a columnist at the ''Courant'' and later joined ''[The Philadelphia Inquirer](/source/The_Philadelphia_Inquirer)'' as national political correspondent. He also taught at the [University of Pennsylvania](/source/University_of_Pennsylvania). Kauffman later worked for [CNN](/source/CNN), taught at [Emerson College](/source/Emerson_College) in Boston, [Morehouse College](/source/Morehouse_College) in Atlanta and the [University of Wisconsin–Madison](/source/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%93Madison). He also worked for the ''[North County Times](/source/North_County_Times)'', one of two daily newspapers in [San Diego County, California](/source/San_Diego_County%2C_California).
In a history of the alternative media, ''A Trumpet to Arms'', author David Armstrong described the ''Advocate'' as a bastion for the "new [muckraker](/source/muckraker)s." The author explored the paper's examination of the behind-the-scenes power exercised by the corporate elite in Hartford. Kauffman had reported that top banks and insurance companies, including [Travelers](/source/The_Travelers_Companies), were funneling the bulk of city pension fund money into companies that propped up the [apartheid](/source/apartheid) regime in [South Africa](/source/South_Africa). The city of Hartford would end up divesting the South Africa–related investments.
Polman notes, in the acknowledgements for "Dateline: Connecticut," "I had originally hoped to thank the publishers of the Hartford Advocate for allowing me to reprint some of my 'Subject to Change' columns, but they denied me access to my work, citing my 'gravitation' to the Courant."[Spoonwood Press, Hartford: 1983]
In the 1980s and '90s the paper included a full-time photographer, Nicholas Lacy, and an array of colorful editors and reporters, including Ric Hornung (who was known to eavesdrop on City Hall denizens by hiding in the lunch truck and taking notes on their conversations), Janet Reynolds (who later became publisher), Jayne Keedle, Susan White Patrick (ESPN Sports Center star Dan Patrick's wife), Leslie Riva, and Edward Ericson, Jr. The paper's reporting on city hall corruption in the early 1990s led to the City Manager's ouster and several criminal convictions.[{{Cite web|url=https://www.courant.com/1991/10/17/city-worker-convicted-of-taking-bribe/|title = City Worker Convicted of Taking Bribe| date=17 October 1991 }}] Later stories about High Sheriff Al Rioux helped lead to his conviction on federal wire and mail fraud charges[{{Cite web|url=https://www.courant.com/1995/08/10/firing-of-special-deputy-sheriff-uncivil-service/|title = Firing of Special Deputy Sheriff Uncivil Service| date=10 August 1995 }}] and the abolition of the county sheriffs' offices statewide in 2000.[[Sheriffs in the United States](/source/Sheriffs_in_the_United_States)]{{Circular reference|date=November 2017}}
===''Valley Advocate''===
Advocate Weekly Newspapers formerly published the ''Valley Advocate'', a similar alternative weekly, in [Easthampton, Massachusetts](/source/Easthampton%2C_Massachusetts), covering the greater [Springfield](/source/Springfield%2C_Massachusetts) area and the [Pioneer Valley](/source/Pioneer_Valley) of [Western Massachusetts](/source/Western_Massachusetts). It began as an independent newspaper in 1973 and was sold in late 2007 to [Newspapers of New England](/source/Newspapers_of_New_England), parent of its competitor the ''[Daily Hampshire Gazette](/source/Daily_Hampshire_Gazette)'' of [Northampton, Massachusetts](/source/Northampton%2C_Massachusetts).