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- The Advocate Weekly Newspapers are four free weekly alternative newspapers in central Connecticut and western Massachusetts, published by New Mass. Media Inc. , a subsidiary of the Chicago-based Tribune Company. The company was founded in 1973 by Geoffrey Robinson and Edward Matys, then copy editors at The Hartford Courant. Robinson, a native of New Haven, worked as Wire Service Editor of the daily Lorain Journal of Ohio after his graduation from Yale University in 1971. Matys had worked in editorial positions at several Massachusetts and Connecticut newspapers. The Valley Advocate started publication as a bi-weekly in September 1973 from small basement offices in Amherst, Massachusetts. In September 1974, Valley Advocate publication went weekly and Robinson and Matys opened offices in Hartford and started publication of the Hartford Advocate. A year later, in September 1975, the pair began publishing the weekly New Haven Advocate and in 1978 started publication of the Fairfield County Advocate (subsequently renamed Fairfield County Weekly to avoid confusion with the neighboring and unrelated Stamford Advocate). In December 2007, Tribune announced it would sell The Valley Advocate, its only Massachusetts publication, to Newspapers of New England. Advocate weeklies offer investigative journalism, national, state and local political coverage, commentary, and arts features and criticism, mostly from a liberal or countercultural point of view. They share some editorial content, but each has regionally focused news and opinion pieces, restaurant reviews, event listings, and advertisements. The newspapers have annual "Best Of" write-in contests, and subsequent issues that feature the winning businesses. The Advocates accept a wider variety of advertisements than mainstream newspapers, including ads for strip clubs, erotic massage services, adult book and video stores, etc. , which columnists and readers have argued conflict with the newspapers' avowed feminism. New Mass. Media was privately owned until 1999, when its owners, including founding publisher Geoffrey Robinson, sold the company to The Hartford Courant for an undisclosed sum. A year later, Courant parent company Times-Mirror was bought by Tribune Company.
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