The Item, formerly known as The Sumter Daily Item and The Daily Item, is an independent morning newspaper published in Sumter, South Carolina, five days a week (Tuesday to Friday), with a "Weekend Edition" delivered on Saturday mornings, by Osteen Publishing Company. It has a circulation of approximately 20,000.[1]
The paper, then called The Sumter Daily Item, was first published on October 15, 1894, by Hubert Graham Osteen.[2] It previously had been operated as The Watchman and Southron (a merger of Sumter Watchman and True Southron).[3] It was South Carolina's first small-town newspaper.[4] Osteen served as the paper's editor and publisher until his retirement in 1946.[2]
In 2008, the paper changed its Monday edition to a tabloid format before abandoning the Monday edition altogether. However, the paper's website is updated each Monday, with news and obituaries.
The paper covers Sumter, Lee and Clarendon counties, with a dedicated bureau located in Manning which publishes a weekly section, "The Clarendon Sun," each Tuesday. Lakeside, magazine covering the Sumter, Clarendon, Orangeburg, Berkeley and Calhoun County areas of Lake Marion is also published six times a year.
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