The Commercial Appeal

The Commercial Appeal, also known as the Memphis Commercial Appeal, is a daily newspaper from Memphis, Tennessee and the areas around it. It is owned by the Gannett Company. Before 2016, it was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, which also owned another paper called the Memphis Press-Scimitar until it stopped publishing in 1983. When Gannett bought Journal Media Group in 2016, they brought together two big newspapers from Tennessee: the Commercial Appeal and Nashville's The Tennessean.

The Commercial Appeal is published six days a week in the morning. You can find it mainly in the Greater Memphis area. This includes Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton counties in Tennessee; DeSoto, Tate, and Tunica counties in Mississippi; and Crittenden County in Arkansas. These counties are close to the city of Memphis.

The Commercial Appeal has won important awards for its work. In 1923, it won a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for speaking out against the Ku Klux Klan in the area. Later, in 1994, the newspaper won another Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for the work of cartoonist Michael Ramirez.

History

The name The Commercial Appeal comes from a merger in the 1800s between two older papers called The Memphis Commercial and The Appeal.

The Appeal started in 1839 as The Western World & Memphis Banner of the Constitution. During the American Civil War, it was a strong support of the Confederate side and moved many times to stay safe. After the war, it returned to Memphis in 1865.

Another early paper, The Avalanche, joined with The Appeal in 1894 to form The Commercial Appeal. Over the years, the paper moved buildings and changed owners. In 2016, it became part of the Gannett Company, which also owns other big newspapers. The paper stopped printing on Saturdays in 2022 and changed how it delivers copies in 2025.

Content

Columnists

In the 1940s, the paper had a well-known writer named Paul Flowers who wrote a column called "The Greenhouse."

Lydel Sims was a writer for the Commercial Appeal from 1949 until he passed away in 1995.

Civil rights

The Commercial Appeal has had a mixed history with civil rights. In 1868, it published an article by a former Confederate general that criticized the methods of a harmful group but supported their goal of treating some people unfairly. In 1917, the paper shared details about a very sad and unfair event that was going to happen.

Later, the paper won an award in 1923 for speaking out against a harmful group that was becoming powerful again. During a big movement for equal rights, the paper usually stayed quiet but did speak up against unfair actions during a protest in 1962. However, its owners often had strong opinions that limited change.

Monetization controversy

In 2007, the Appeal tried to start a new way of making money by linking stories to ads, but people did not like it, so they stopped the idea.

Guns database

At the end of 2008, The Commercial Appeal shared a list online of people in Tennessee who had permits to carry handguns. This list became important after an incident where someone with a permit used a gun. Some groups wanted the list to be hidden, but others wanted it to stay public. The newspaper believed sharing the list could help keep people safe.

In 2013, a law was passed to keep permit information private, but the newspaper kept its list online until it felt the information was no longer useful.