A Hussman history: how an Arkansas newspaper war led to a landmark UNC donation

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Walter Hussman Jr. and his family donated $25 million last month to what is now known as the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, the largest endowed gift the school has ever received.

As longtime chairperson of WEHCO Media Inc., a privately owned communications company founded in 1909, he remains one of the most wealthy people in Arkansas.

Part of that wealth is rooted in years of feuding and legal action between a Hussman-backed paper and Arkansas’ other major news player at the time. Hussman emerged victorious – erasing his rival’s newsroom and creating a bitterness toward Hussman among its former staffers that persists to this day.

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