The Lexington Herald-Leader is a newspaper owned by the McClatchy Company and based in Lexington, Kentucky. According to the 1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook, the paid circulation of the Herald-Leader is the second largest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The newspaper has won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing, and the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. It had also been a finalist in six other Pulitzer awards in the 22-year period up until its sale in 2006, a record that was unsurpassed by any mid-sized newspaper in the United States during the same time frame. History The Herald-Leader was created by a 1983 merger of the Lexington Herald and the Lexington Leader. The story of the Herald begins in 1870 with a paper known as the Lexington Daily Press. In 1895, a descendant of that paper was first published as the Morning Herald, later to be renamed the Lexington Herald in 1905. Meanwhile, in 1888 a group of Fayette County Republicans began publication of a competing afternoon paper named the Kentucky Leader, which became known as the Lexington Leader in 1901. In 1937, the owner of the Leader, John Stoll, purchased the Herald. The papers continued as independent entities for 46 years. Despite the common ownership, the two papers had different editorial stances; the Herald was moderately liberal while the Leader was conservative. The two newspapers published a combined Sunday edition. In 1973, both were purchased by Knight Newspapers, which merged with Ridder Publications to form Knight Ridder the following year. A decade later, in 1983, the Herald and Leader merged to form today's Lexington Herald-Leader. In 1985, publisher Creed Black allowed reporters to publish a series of articles which exposed widespread corruption within the University of Kentucky's Wildcats men's basketball team. From 1979 to 1991, the paper was edited by John Carroll, who went on to edit The Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times. On July 11, 2001, the paper reduced four positions due to declining advertising revenue and higher newsprint costs. Long-time columnists Don Edwards and Dick Burdette took voluntary early retirements but are still published occasionally as contributing writers. The job eliminations were a cumulation of efforts that started in May when the workforce was reduced by 15 positions. On July 4, 2004, the newspaper, in an effort to apologize for failing to cover the civil