Donald Newhouse, Star-Ledger owner, dies at 96

Donald E. Newhouse, a billionaire newspaper publisher and philanthropist who ran the Star-Ledger and other family-owned newspapers across the U.S., died today at his home in Lambertville.  He was 96.

Under his leadership, Advance Publications won multiple Pulitzer Prizes and had a combined national circulation of nearly 3 million newspapers.  In its heyday, it was the third-largest newspaper company in the nation.

In addition to the Star-Ledger, Newhouse owned the Trenton Times, the Jersey Journal, the Times of Trenton, the South Jersey Times, and the Hunterdon County Democrat.  The Advance portfolio included newspapers in Alabama, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, and owned television stations in Alabama, Missouri, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.  In later years, Newhouse owned reddit.com.

His father, Samuel I. Newhouse, Sr., began the publishing empire when he purchased the Staten Island Advance in 1922.  His brother, S.I. Newhouse, Jr., ran the magazine arm of the family business, which included Vogue, Condé Nast, and the New Yorker.

He is survived by his three children and several grandchildren.