The Stamford Advocate is a seven-day daily newspaper that serves the city of Stamford, as well as the neighboring southwestern Connecticut towns of Darien and New Canaan. It is owned and operated by Hearst Communications. The paper’s headquarters moved in 2008 from downtown Stamford, across the street from the Stamford Government Center, to the Riverbend complex in the Springdale section of town. Its sister publication, the Greenwich Time, was acquired by Hearst in November 2007.
The newspaper first appeared on September 2, 1829. The first editor, Charles A. Holly, was a proponent of reading in Stamford and was one of the founders of the Ferguson Library. Holly was also a staunch supporter of the labor movement and fought to limit the influence of capitalist interests in city politics. He favored supporting candidates of any party who supported the rights of workers and was willing to “administer a stinging rebuke” to those who ignored these interests.
In 1892, the Advocate became a daily newspaper and adopted its current name. By the turn of the century, it was one of the most influential newspapers in the state. In 1916, it began publishing a weekly supplement, the Stamford Citizen, to provide greater coverage of local political issues. The following year it joined with other papers in the area to form the Connecticut Newspaper Association, which later became the New England Newspaper Association.
The Ferguson Library has the Stamford Advocate on microfilm from its beginning to three months prior to the present date. The only exception is the issue for Sept. 1, 1981, which lacks volume numbering. Copies of the Stamford Advocate may be found at libraries around the country; see the LCCN Permalink below for details. The newspaper’s AllSides Media Bias Rating of Center means that it does not exhibit much predictable bias or balance articles with left and right perspectives. A Bias Rating of Center does not necessarily mean that a source is totally unbiased or perfectly reasonable, but that it is in the middle of the spectrum.