The Advocate is the local daily newspaper of Newark, Ohio, serving the general Licking County region.

In 1820, a 22-year-old local resident named Benjamin Briggs printed the first issue in a wooden stilt shanty over a frog pond on the west side of what is now Newark's downtown square.

Briggs, beset with start-up problems, could only publish three issues in his first five months in business.

During the middle of the century, the paper was a weekly edition, and served as an important regional news source during the American Civil War.

In March 1882, the Advocate was sold to John A. Caldwell and soon became a daily newspaper.