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''The Connecticut Courant'' began as a weekly on October 29 , 1764 . The word " Courant " was a popular name for English-language newspapers, borrowed from the Dutch. The daily ''Hartford Courant'' traces its existence back to the weekly, thereby claiming the title "America's oldest continuously published newspaper" and adopting as its slogan, "Older than the nation." '' The New Hampshire Gazette '', which started publication in 1756, has a legitimate claim to the title of oldest paper in the nation, and is a bi-weekly, while the Courant has not missed a single day since October 29 , 1764 . One of the most famous editors of the ''Courant'', Charles Dudley Warner , was a widely-read author and collaborated with his Hartford neighbor, Mark Twain . For many years, it was possible to commend the ''Courant'' for being the nation's oldest independently-owned newspaper. ''The Hartford Times,'' its greatest competitor, failed in the 1970s even after being taken over by the otherwise successful Gannett chain. It also was possible for 75 years to make fun of the ''Courant'' as "the nation's oldest newspaper that never won a Pulitzer {Link without Title} Prize." Both of those eras are over. ''The Courant'' was purchased in 1979 by Times Mirror (the ''Los Angeles Times'' parent company). The first years of out-of-town ownership were described by a former ''Courant'' reporter in a book titled ''Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America's Oldest Newspaper.'' {Link without Title} One criticism was that the new owners were more interested in awards, and less interested in traditional ''Courant'' devotion to exhaustive (or exhausting) coverage of local news. The new ''Courant'' won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for digging into problems with the Hubble Space Telescope (a Connecticut company was involved in the construction), and it won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize in the Breaking News category for coverage of a 1998 murder-suicide that took five lives at Connecticut Lottery headquarters. In 2000 , Times Mirror (and the ''Courant'') became part of the Tribune Corporation, one of the world's largest media empires. Ironically, along the way the ''Courant'' also acquired the ''Valley Advocate'' group of "alternative" weeklies started by two disgruntled ''Courant'' staff members in 1973. At its Hartford office, the Courant also sells - amongst other merchandising goods - a beach towel that has the text of the paper's first ever frontpage printed on it. EXTERNAL LINKS
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