Richmond Times-Dispatch

The Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD or TD for short) is the primary daily newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, and the primary newspaper of record for the state of Virginia.

The Times-Dispatch has the second-highest circulation of any Virginia newspaper, after Norfolk's The Virginian-Pilot. In addition to the Richmond area (Petersburg, Chester, Hopewell, Colonial Heights and surrounding areas), the Times-Dispatch has substantial readership in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Waynesboro. As the primary paper of the state's capital, the Times-Dispatch serves as a newspaper of record for rural regions of the state that lack large local papers. The Times-Dispatch lists itself as "Virginia's News Leader" on its masthead.

Although the Richmond Compiler was published in Virginia's capital beginning in 1815, and merged with a later newspaper called The Times, the Times and Compiler failed in 1853, despite an attempt of former banker James A. Cowardin and William H. Davis to revive it several years before. In 1850, Cowardin and Davis established a rival newspaper called the Richmond Dispatch, and by 1852 the Dispatch bragged of having circulation three times as large as any other daily paper in the city, and advertising dominated even its front page. Cowardin began his only term in the Virginia House of Delegates (as a Whig) in 1853, but many thought the city's pre-eminent paper the Richmond Examiner. John Hammersley bought half of the newspaper company in 1859, and continued as a joint publisher on the masthead until May 5, 1862, when no name appeared. By April 1861, the newspaper announced its circulation was "within a fraction of 13,000." The newspaper had been staunchly pro-slavery since 1852, and called Union soldiers "thieves and cut-throats". Most of its wartime issues are now available online. In 1864, Hammersley brought new presses from England, having run the Union blockade, although he sold half his interest to James W. Lewellen before his dangerous departure (presumably through Wilmington, North Carolina, the last Southern port open to Confederate vessels in 1864).

The Richmond Daily Dispatch published its last wartime issue on April 1, 1865; and its office was destroyed the next night during the fire set by Confederate soldiers as they left the city. However, it resumed publication on December 9, 1865, establishing a new office at 12th and Main Streets and accepting Henry K. Ellyson as part-owner as well as editor. By 1866, the Dispatch was one of five papers "carrying prestige from ante bellum days" published in Richmond (of seven newspapers). Although the newspaper initially opposed the Ku Klux Klan, the Richmond Dispatch accepted Klan advertising in 1868, as it fought Congressional Reconstruction and the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868. However, it later accepted the resulting state constitution (after anti-Confederate provisions were stripped) as well as allowing Negroes on juries and in the legislature. Ellyson briefly served as Richmond's mayor in 1870, selected by Richmond's city council appointed by Governor Gilbert C. Walker. After what some called the "Municipal War" because the prior appointed mayor George Chahoon refused to relinquish his office and mob violence and blockades, the Virginia Supreme Court declared Ellyson the mayor but awaited elections. After skullduggery concerning stolen ballots in the pro-Chahoon Jackson Ward and the election commission declared Ellyson the winner, he refused to serve under the resulting cloud, leading to yet another problematic election won by the Conservative Party candidate. The revived Dispatch later opposed former Confederate General William Mahone and his Readjuster Party. After James Cowardin died in 1882, his son Charles took the helm (with Ellyson's assistance, and with Ellyson family members handling business operations), and the paper stopped supporting Negro rights, instead criticizing Del. John Mercer Langston with racial stereotypes.

In 1886, Lewis Ginter founded the Richmond Daily Times. A year later, lawyer Joseph Bryan (1845-1908) bought the Daily Times from Ginter, beginning the paper's long association with the Bryan family. Bryan and Ginter had previously helped revitalize the Tanner & Delany Engine Company, transforming it into the Richmond Locomotive Works, which had 800 employees by 1893 and built 200 locomotives per year. In 1890, the Daily Times changed its name to the Richmond Times. In 1896, Bryan acquired the eight-year-old rival Manchester Leader and launched the Evening Leader. In 1899, the evening Richmond News was founded. John L. Williams, owner of the Dispatch, bought the News in 1900.

By 1903, it was obvious Richmond was not big enough to support four papers. That year, Williams and Bryan agreed to merge Richmond's main newspapers. The morning papers merged to become the Richmond Times-Dispatch under Bryan's ownership, while the evening papers merged to become The Richmond News Leader under Williams' ownership. Bryan bought the News Leader in 1908, but died later that year. (Joseph Bryan Park was donated by his widow, Isobel ("Belle") Stewart Bryan, and named for him).

His son John Stewart Bryan had given up his own legal career in 1900 to become a reporter working for the Dispatch and helped found the Associated Press and then became vice-president of the publishing company. Upon his father's death, John Stewart Bryan became owner and publisher of the two papers, but in 1914 sold a controlling interest in the Times-Dispatch to three families. He hired Douglas Southall Freeman as editor of the News Leader in 1915, and remained in control until becoming President of the College of William and Mary in 1934 (and publishing a biography of his father the following year). John Stewart Bryan reacquired the Times-Dispatch in 1940 when the two papers' business interests merged to form Richmond Newspapers, in which Bryan held a 54-percent interest. That conglomeration is now known as Media General. Other publishers in the Bryan family include D. Tennant Bryan and John Stewart Bryan III.

In 1948, Virginius Dabney won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing while editorializing for the Times-Dispatch.