The Baltimore Sun is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news.

[4][5][6][7][8] David D. Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, closed a deal to buy the paper on January 15, 2024.

[9] The Sun was founded on May 17, 1837, by Arunah Shepherdson Abell and two associates, William Moseley Swain from Rhode Island, and Azariah H. Simmons from Philadelphia, where they had started and published the Public Ledger the year before.

[10] The Abell family and descendants owned The Sun until 1910, when the local Black and Garrett families invested in the paper at the suggestion of former rival owner/publisher of The News, Charles H. Grasty, and they, along with Grasty gained a controlling interest; they retained the name A. S. Abell Company for the parent publishing company.

From 1947 to 1986, The Sun was the owner and founder of Maryland's first television station, WMAR-TV (channel 2), which was a longtime affiliate of CBS until 1981, when it switched to NBC.

As Cold War tensions grew, it set up shop in Bonn, West Germany, in February 1955; the bureau was later moved to Berlin.

[13] The same week, a 115-year-old rivalry ended when the oldest newspaper in the city, the News American, a Hearst paper since the 1920s with roots dating back to 1773, folded.

[17] In the 21st century, The Sun, like most legacy newspapers in the United States, has suffered a number of setbacks in the competition with Internet and other sources, including a decline in readership and ads, a shrinking newsroom staff,[18] and competition from 2005 to 2007 with the free daily The Baltimore Examiner, along with a similar Washington, D.C.–based publication of a small chain recently started by new owners that took over the San Francisco Examiner.

BSMG content reaches more than one million Baltimore-area readers each week and is the region's most widely read source of news.

[29][30][31] In January 2024, David D. Smith, executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, reached an agreement to acquire the paper, with conservative commentator Armstrong Williams holding an undisclosed stake.

Smith said he believed he could grow subscriptions and advertising through a greater focus on community news and integrating technology in ways other print media publishers are not going.

[9] In his first visit to the newsroom, he sparred with reporters and said the paper should emulate WBFF's news philosophy, including through non-scientific reader polls and aggressive coverage of Baltimore City Public Schools.

[35] Williams said the paper's editorial page would cease endorsing political candidates and start including more conservative viewpoints, but not at the expense of liberal ones.

Opinion editor Tricia Bishop, who has worked for the newspaper since 1999, would succeed him, with Davis staying on for a few months as a consultant for The Sun's owners.

The guild demanded the Sun stop republishing WBFF-TV content and asked management to meet with staff to discuss their concerns.

Williams said in a statement he respected the guild's opinion but hoped the union "reciprocally appreciates legitimate managerial prerogatives in the journalistic enterprise".

[43] In a subsequent Sun column, Williams wrote the guild and the Associated Press had no inherent authority to prescribe the way in which language is used.

Smith also dismissed Davis's concerns that management was proposing union-busting clauses in negotiations, including the ability to terminate employees without just cause, saying, "Nobody does that.

[46] However, by the 1980s, cultural, technological and economic shifts in America were eating away at afternoon newspapers' market share, with readers flocking to either morning papers or switching to nightly television news broadcasts.

The Sunday Sun for many years was noted for a locally produced rotogravure Maryland pictorial magazine section, featuring works by such acclaimed photographers as A. Aubrey Bodine.

A quarterly version of the Sun Magazine[50] was resurrected in September 2010, with stories that included a comparison of young local doctors, an interview with actress Julie Bowen and a feature on the homes of a former Baltimore anchorwoman.

Sun reporters and editors produce more than three dozen blogs on such subjects as technology, weather, education, politics, Baltimore crime, real estate, gardening, pets and parenting.

In 2008, the Baltimore Sun Media Group launched the daily paper b to target younger and more casual readers, ages 18 to 35.

In April 1988, at a cost of $180 million, the company purchased 60 acres (24 ha) of land at Port Covington and built "Sun Park".

[58] After The Sun's purchase in 2024, its new owners signaled plans to move the newsroom to the Bagby Building at 509 S. Exeter St. in Little Italy, farther away from city offices and courts.

The season focuses on the role of the media in affecting political decisions in City Hall and the priorities of the Baltimore Police Department.

One storyline involves a troubled Sun reporter named Scott Templeton, and his escalating tendency to sensationalize and falsify stories.