briefsports.net
Sports media · Jamaica

The Gleaner

Jamaican daily newspaper first published in 1834, part of the RJRGLEANER Communications Group since 2016; its sports desk covers athletics, cricket, horse racing and schoolboy football.
✓ Last reviewed: September 2026
First issue13 September 1834
FoundersJacob and Joshua deCordova
OwnerThe Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, within the RJRGLEANER Communications Group
Sister brandsThe Star, Television Jamaica, RJR 94FM, Power 106FM, FAME 95FM, HITZ 92FM, Music 99FM
Sports sectionjamaica-gleaner.com/sports

What is The Gleaner?

The Gleaner is a Jamaican daily newspaper published in Kingston, with a website and app carrying the same masthead. Its own About page records a first issue on 13 September 1834 — a four-page Saturday weekly started by the brothers Jacob and Joshua deCordova — and a later move to a multi-section broadsheet published daily.[1] The paper is produced by The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, which since 2016 has sat inside the RJRGLEANER Communications Group alongside Television Jamaica, the RJR radio stations and the tabloid The Star.[2] [3]

For a reader trying to work out who covers sport in Jamaica, that ownership is the first thing to establish. The Gleaner is not an independent voice standing beside TVJ and RJR radio; all three report to the same group. Coverage that appears in the newspaper, on the television news and on group radio is one owner reporting three times, and a claim of coverage "across three Jamaican outlets" should be read with that in mind.

What does The Gleaner cover?

The sports section at jamaica-gleaner.com/sports runs domestic and international sport side by side. On 12 September 2026 it carried the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest, the opening of the Jamaica Premier League season, a second round of the schoolboy Manning Cup, Caribbean Premier League cricket, a Test match between England and Pakistan, and the United States Open tennis final.[4] Athletics, football at club and schoolboy level, cricket and horse racing are the recurring domestic beats.

The paper's athletics coverage is organised around the domestic season rather than the international circuit: the ISSA Boys' and Girls' Athletics Championships, known as Champs, and the national senior championships are staffed as news events with reporters, results and attendance reporting, and the international meetings are covered through the Jamaican entrants in them. The section is a news operation rather than a results archive; it publishes reports, interviews and previews, and does not maintain standing tables of records or historical results.[4]

What are The Gleaner's reach and standing?

The Gleaner states on its own About page that the RJRGLEANER group employs more than 400 people across Jamaica, operates more than fifteen print publication brands worldwide, and holds an 80 per cent reader market share.[1] That market-share figure is the company's own and no audited circulation certificate for it could be retrieved; it is reported here as the company's claim rather than adopted.

The structural evidence is firmer. The 2016 transaction that folded the Gleaner's media business into Radio Jamaica was reported by the paper's own business desk as creating "the largest media entity in Jamaica and among the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean", with Gleaner shareholders taking 1.2 billion shares in the enlarged Radio Jamaica.[2] The group that resulted publishes the Gleaner and The Star in print, operates five radio stations and two television channels, and runs the Jamaica News Network and 1spotmedia digital services.[3] The Gleaner is the print arm of that structure, and its sports reporting is carried into the group's broadcast and digital outlets.

Since when?

The first issue is dated 13 September 1834 and the paper has been published continuously since, moving from a weekly octavo to a daily broadsheet.[1] The ownership change is recent and is three dates, not one. The group's own overview says the two companies "came together" in 2015.[3] The Gleaner's business desk reported that the transaction actually closed on 24 March 2016, when The Gleaner Company Limited consolidated its media operations into a subsidiary, The Gleaner Company (Media) Limited, which was then merged into Radio Jamaica Limited.[2]

The residual company — the pre-merger Gleaner Company Limited, holding financial investments and real estate but no media — was renamed 1834 Investments Limited and continues separately.[2] Anyone checking who owned the paper on a given date needs the 2016 closing date rather than the 2015 announcement year, because between the two the Gleaner masthead and the RJR broadcast brands were still separately owned.

Why does The Gleaner matter in Jamaica's sport?

Jamaica's domestic sporting calendar is built around events the newspaper has covered for generations — Champs, the national athletics championships, the Manning Cup and daCosta Cup schoolboy football competitions, and racing at Caymanas Park. The Gleaner staffs those as news, which means its reports are frequently the dated, attributable record of an attendance figure, a schedule change or a federation decision that no governing body published itself.[4]

For anyone assessing whether an outlet that covered an athlete is one that matters in Jamaica, the Gleaner is the longest-running national title in the country and the print arm of the largest media group in it.[1] [2] The qualification that goes with that is the ownership one: coverage in the Gleaner, on Television Jamaica and on RJR 94FM is coverage by one company. Three separately owned Jamaican outlets is a different and stronger claim, and the group's own brand list is the place to check which is which.[3]

References

  1. The Gleaner — About Us. Accessed September 2026.
  2. Jamaica Gleaner — RJR-Gleaner transaction closes; Gleaner's media subsidiary joins RJR group of companies, 3 April 2016. Accessed September 2026.
  3. RJRGLEANER Communications Group — Overview. Accessed September 2026.
  4. The Gleaner — Sports section. Accessed September 2026.