About The Washington Continent

The Washington Continent was founded on July 3, 2007 - a day before the Fourth of July - to provide clarity to all citizens who seek a nonpartisan independent perspective on political news and events inside the world of Washington, D.C. The Continent fully launched on July 30, the same day the first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown, Va., on July 30, 1619.

The Continent gets its unique name from Our Continent, an early 1880's weekly magazine once published by Albion W. Tourgée. Tourgée represented Homer Plessy in the famous segregation case Plessy vs. Ferguson and also founded the National Citizens Rights Association - a short-lived forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

A relatively unknown print trade publication called the Journalist - now more widely known as Editor & Publisher - once attacked Publisher Tourgée. A report in the Journalist reads: "Judge Albion W. Tourgee, publisher of the New York Continent ... is a presumptuous ass."

The newspaper name was also used for the New York Daily Continent - also known as the New York Continent and simply the Continent - by newspaper innovator Frank A. Munsey in 1890. The newspaper, which had been named the New York Star, went on to become the city's first illustrated daily. The newspaper was finally sold to Col. John A. Cockerell, who later changed the newspaper's name to the Morning Advertiser, which was later merged with William Randolph Hearst's New York American.

The Continent's modern day staff includes a team of award-winning reporters. Our reporters have been quoted by ABC News and the Boston Globe.

It is now owned by RCI.