Founded in 1868 by William S. Ritter and Jesse G. Hawley, the Reading Eagle came into being to offer a reliable daily news source for a booming industrial city. The idea sparked when Ritter and Hawley, two local men in the printing business, decided to create an afternoon newspaper that could provide hardworking residents with a mix of local community updates and national telegraph reports. Amazingly, the founders' descendants owned and operated the paper for over 150 years before it faced financial struggles. The publication was acquired in 2019, and the site continues to operate today under its current owner, MediaNews Group. Today, the Reading Eagle is based in Reading, Pennsylvania, and serves as the primary news hub for Berks County. They cover a broad mix of daily news, including local government and state political developments, community entertainment, and regional business updates. They also boast a large sports section, heavily featuring local high school athletic rivalries, regional college games, and the town's minor league baseball team, the Reading Fightin Phils. One interesting fact: A unique fact about the Reading Eagle is its cool connection to American literary history. John Updike, the legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, actually worked for the newspaper as a copyboy during his teenage summers in the early 1950s, an experience that helped inspire his lifelong writing career!