News Chief
The News Chief is a daily paper located in Winter Haven, Florida that serves east Polk County, Florida. It is owned by Gannett and is located at 455 Sixth St. N.W. History. The "News Chief" traces its beginnings to September 28, 1911, when the first edition of the weekly "Florida Chief" was published by its founder, M.M. "Dad" Lee. Everything originally was handset, but, within four years, Lee had moved the newspaper to larger quarters and eventually acquired three linotype machines. During its 10th anniversary in September 1921, the newspaper went to twice-a-week publication, and three  years later went to five days a week, Monday through Friday. Lee continued the newspaper through two severe hurricanes (1926 and 1933), a fire (1930) and the Great Depression before selling the newspaper in January 1948 to W.W. Galvin of Ohio. Galvin immediately acquired a weekly, "The Winter Haven News", and combined it with the "Florida Chief" into the "News Chief". The newspaper eventually passed to the W.E. "Bill" Rynerson family, which later acquired the weekly "Auburndale Star". Disaster struck on Nov. 13, 1954, when a major fire destroyed the "News Chief's" downtown Winter Haven building and severely damaged  most of the equipment. A four-page Sunday edition was printed at "The Winter Haven Herald" to keep intact the record of not missing a scheduled publication day. In March 1964, the "News Chief" became one of the early leaders in Florida journalism in converting to offset printing. In December 1972, the "News Chief" moved from its downtown plant to new quarters. The "News Chief" added to its holdings with the purchase of the "Winter Haven Shopping Guide" in 1978. In 1979, the Rynerson family sold the "News Chief" to Multimedia Inc. In 1990, the "News Chief" was sold to  Stauffer Communications. In 1995, the "News Chief" and its other holdings became part of Morris Communications Co. with the Morris purchase of the Stauffer Communications chain of publications. On December 1 2007, the "News Chief" and its other holdings, including the "Polk Shopper", became part of GateHouse Media Inc. In March 2008, GateHouse sold the "News Chief's" newspaper operations to The New York Times Company and its Lakeland newspaper, "The Ledger". On January 6, 2012, Halifax Media Group became the new owner of the News Chief. In 2015, Halifax was acquired by New Media Investment Group, owner of the  GateHouse chain.