Index-Journal
After an initial career as a lawyer, Harry Legare Watson (1876–1956) of Phoenix, South Carolina, merged the two papers in 1919 and continued as owner and editor for the rest of his life.
(2003 circulation: 14,084 daily and 15,456 Sunday). A daily newspaper published in Greenwood, the Index-Journal was founded in 1919 with the merger of two earlier papers, the Greenwood Evening Index and the Greenwood Daily Journal. It now serves the Lakelands area, including Greenwood, Abbeville, McCormick, and Saluda Counties. The Index-Journal is one of the last family-owned daily newspapers in the state.
The Greenwood Journal began in 1894 while its rival the Index commenced three years later in 1897. The Greenwood Journal became the Greenwood Daily Journal in 1911. After an initial career as a lawyer, Harry Legare Watson (1876–1956) of Phoenix, South Carolina, merged the two papers in 1919 and continued as owner and editor for the rest of his life. Often working from Sunnyside, his residence on Taggart Avenue in Greenwood, Watson composed daily editorials and became well known as a community leader.
After Watson’s death, the Index-Journal passed to three of its executives: circulation manager Frank Mundy, advertising manager Bill Wilson, and editor Ed Chaffin. The three agreed that the survivors would have the opportunity to purchase the shares of any partner who died. Under this agreement, control of the paper first devolved to Chaffin and Mundy and then to Mundy alone. Mundy’s widow Eleanor Mundy took over the paper in 1982 and left it to her daughter Judith Mundy Burns in 1998. Burns remained owner and CEO as of 2003 and an outspoken advocate of community journalism.
