[4] It owns the national newspaper USA Today, as well as several local newspapers, including the Austin American-Statesman; Detroit Free Press; The Indianapolis Star; The Cincinnati Enquirer; The Columbus Dispatch; The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Florida; The Tallahassee Democrat in Tallahassee, Florida; The Tennessean in Nashville, Tennessee; The Daily News Journal, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York; The Des Moines Register; the El Paso Times; The Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Arizona; The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida; the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; the Argus Leader; the Pueblo Chieftain; and the Great Falls Tribune.

[10] In April 1957, Paul Miller succeeded Frank Gannett as president and CEO when the group held 19 newspapers over four states; Florida not among them.

He spoke to Marie Holderman, the owner and publisher of the Cocoa Tribune, and shared his plan for a morning daily paper in Brevard County.

Convinced of Gannett's determination and at age 81, Holderman decided to sell, and Pound told the executives they wanted $1.9 million in compensation.

The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware was purchased from DuPont[16] and The Tennessean in Nashville[17] in 1979, when the chain had grown to 79 newspapers.

[22] That year, the company moved to its headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Beginning in 2005 at the Fort Myers News-Press, Gannett pioneered the mojo concept of mobile multimedia journalists, reporters who were initially untethered from conventional newsrooms and drove around their communities filing hyperlocal news in various formats including text for print publication, still photos for print and online publication, and audio and video for the News-Press website.

"[25] On March 7, 2011, Gannett replaced the stylized "G" logo in use since the 1970s (notably used on its TV stations as a corporate/local ID with different animations), and adopted a new company tagline: "It's all within reach.

[27] On March 24, 2012, the company announced that it would discipline 25 employees in Wisconsin who had signed the petition to recall Governor Scott Walker, stating that this open public participation in a political process was a violation of the company's code of journalistic ethics and that their primary responsibility as journalists was to maintain credibility and public trust in themselves and the organization.

[32] On June 13, 2013, Gannett announced plans to buy Dallas-based Belo Corporation for $1.5 billion and the assumption of debt.

[33][34] Because of ownership conflicts that exist in markets where both Belo and Gannett own television stations and newspapers, the use of a third-party company (Sander Media, LLC, owned by former Belo executive Jack Sander) as a licensee to buy stations to be operated by the owner of a same-market competitor and concerns about any possible future consolidation of operations of Gannett- and Belo-owned properties in markets where both own television stations or collusion involving the Gannett and Sander stations in retransmission consent negotiations, anti-media-consolidation groups (such as Free Press) and pay television providers (such as Time Warner Cable and DirecTV) have called for the FCC to block the acquisition.

[35][36] On December 16, 2013, the United States Department of Justice announced that Gannett, Belo, and Sander would need to divest Belo's station in St. Louis, KMOV, to a government-approved third-party that would be barred from entering into any agreements with Gannett, in order to fully preserve competition in advertising sales with Gannett-owned KSDK.

[40] On May 14, 2014, Gannett announced the acquisition of six stations from the Texas-based London Broadcasting Company in a $215 million deal, including KCEN-TV (NBC) in Waco-Temple-Bryan, KYTX (CBS) in Tyler-Longview, KIII (ABC) in Corpus Christi, KBMT (ABC/NBC) in Beaumont-Port Arthur, KXVA (FOX) in Abilene-Sweetwater and KIDY (FOX) in San Angelo.

On August 5, 2014, Gannett announced that it plans to split into two independent publicly traded companies–one focused on newspapers and publishing, the other on broadcasting.

The two companies shared a headquarters complex in Tysons Corner for a time, though Tegna has since moved to a new 440,000-square-foot office tower nearby, occupying roughly 60,000 square feet.

[46] On October 7, 2015, Gannett struck a deal to buy the Journal Media Group for $280 million, giving it control of publications in over 100 markets in the Midwestern and Southern U.S.

[48] In April 2016, Gannett made an unsolicited bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing Company for $12.25 per-share, or around $400 million.

[53] In January 2019, Digital First Media (DFM) made an unsolicited bid to acquire Gannett for $1.36 billion, but it was rejected for being undervalued.

[64] Gannett's board of directors, which does not include anyone with journalism background, paid CEO Mike Reed a salary $900,000 and long term stock incentives adding to a total of $7.7 million in 2021, the first full year after the merger.

During Reed's tenure, Gannett stock has fallen 70%, reducing the value of future equity incentive plan awards.

[65][66] Gannett was sued in October 2019[67] under the New York State Child Victim's Act by a former paperboy who accused the company of enabling a former district manager to sexually abuse him in the 1980s.

Gannett chief operating officer Michael G. Kane sent the original claimant a letter indicating no evidence had been found and they were "closing out" the matter.

Additionally, three more men filed suit against Gannett for child sex abuse in September 2020 and April 2021;[72] these cases are all pending too.

Nearly three years after the first lawsuit filing, in July 2022, Gannett defense attorneys notified the court of their intent to file a motion to have the former paperboys' Child Victims Act cases taken "out of the state court system and turn them over to the New York Workers' Compensation Board"[74] stating that the 11–14-year-old paperboys should have applied for workman's compensation at the time of their injuries in the 1980s or upon enactment of the CVA in 2019.

[75] In December 2022, presiding Judge, Deborah A. Chimes acquiesced to Gannett's demands that NY Workers Compensation Board – despite the existence of the Child Victims Act as NY State law – determine if Plaintiffs have a valid cause of action for damages or whether they are limited to benefits under the Worker’s Compensation Law.

On July 26, 2024, this demand of Gannett, received and accepted fully by Judge Deborah Chimes, was reversed, by the Fourth Judicial Department of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court.

[78] According to a statement from the company, this decision, regarded by observers as a cost-cutting move, "will give us the opportunity to redeploy more dollars toward our teams and build capacity where we might have gaps.

In reaction to the news, the company announced, "In the coming days, we will be making necessary but painful reductions to staffing, eliminating some open positions and roles that will impact valued colleagues."

[117] Gannett acknowledged in 2021 that it provided advertisers with inaccurate information for nine months misrepresenting where billions of ads were placed.

On October 6, 2011, Gannett's chairman, president and chief executive officer Craig A. Dubow resigned, citing health reasons.

[126] In February 2024, Gannett moved out of its headquarters and planned to relocate to a 24,000-square-foot leased office space in New York City starting March 31.