---
category: Private Organization
created: 2026-09-23
location: Houston, Texas, USA
relations:
- fn: 1
  reverse: true
  start: 1987
  type: owned
  with: '[[Hearst Corporation]]'
- end: 1987
  fn: 1
  reverse: true
  type: owned
  with: '[[Houston Endowment]]'
summary: Houston daily newspaper, the largest in Texas in 1987, when the Houston Endowment
  sold it to the Hearst Corporation for 400 million dollars.
tags:
- Organization
- Media
- Newspaper
- Texas
- BCCI
updated: 2026-09-23
---

The Houston Chronicle is a daily newspaper in [Houston](/places/houston/), [Texas](/places/texas/). On March 12, 1987, when it was the largest daily in Texas, with a paid circulation of 425,434 daily and 528,153 on Sunday, it was sold to the Hearst Corporation for 400 million dollars. Its owner, the nonprofit Houston Endowment, had to give up its controlling interest in the paper by 1989 under federal law.[^1]

### BCCI and Bush reporting

On June 4, 1992 the Chronicle published Jerry Urban's "Bush Said Friend's Arbusto Investment Was His Own, Not Saudi Money," on the investment by James R. Bath in [George W. Bush](/people/george-w-bush/)'s oil company Arbusto Energy.[^2]

[^1]: "Houston Chronicle Bought by Hearst for $400 Million." *The Washington Post,* March 13, 1987. http://web.archive.org/web/20251106213046/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1987/03/13/houston-chronicle-bought-by-hearst-for-400-million/7f0b6b51-2861-4938-88bd-0f43a32d6e88/
[^2]: Urban, Jerry. "Bush Said Friend's Arbusto Investment Was His Own, Not Saudi Money." *Houston Chronicle,* June 4, 1992. Reproduced at https://911timeline.s3.amazonaws.com/1990s/houstonchronicle060492.html