The Ledger

History

The paper was founded on August 22, 1924, as the Lakeland Evening Ledger. In 1927, it bought its main competitor, the morning Lakeland Star-Telegram. By 1930, it was obvious that Lakeland could not support two papers, so Ledger Publishing Company merged the two papers into a single morning paper, the Lakeland Ledger and Star-Telegram. In 1941, Star-Telegram was dropped from the masthead, and in 1967 the name was shortened to simply The Ledger.

The New York Times Company bought The Ledger in 1970 and owned it until 2012, when it sold its entire regional newspaper group to Halifax Media. In 2015, Halifax was acquired by New Media Investment Group.

Jerome Ferson became publisher of the newspaper on July 30, 2007. Kevin Drake became publisher of the newspaper on January 21, 2014. In October 2016, Drake left The Ledger to return to his hometown of Spartanburg, South Carolina, to work as a group publisher for GateHouse Media.

Brian Burns, former publisher of The Tampa Tribune, joined The Ledger as publisher on January 25, 2017. He departed the newspaper July 25, 2019. No new publisher had been named as of October 2021.

Louis M. "Skip" Perez has been The Ledger's longest-serving chief news executive, holding the position of Executive Editor from 1981 to 2011.

References

References

1. "Member Directory".
2. [http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/items/2012/01/06/halifax-media-purchases-16-newspapers.html Halifax Media purchases 16 newspapers] {{Webarchive. link. (January 9, 2012)
3. link. (March 7, 2016)
4. Ceballos, John. (January 21, 2014). "New Publisher Named for The Ledger". The Ledger.
5. Devore, Lenore. (October 12, 2016). "Ledger Media Group Publisher Kevin Drake leaving Polk County, returning to his roots". The Ledger.
6. Devore, Lenore. (January 25, 2017). "Brian Burns named new publisher of the Ledger Media Group". The Ledger.
7. Bouffard, Kevin. (July 15, 2019). "Publisher Brian Burns leaving Ledger Media Group". The Ledger.