The New York Post is one of the oldest newspapers published in the United States. It is a conservative tabloid owned by Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and is the 12th largest newspaper (in terms of circulation) in the United States.
Early history
The paper was founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801 as the New-York Evening Post, a broadsheet quite unlike today's tabloid. Early editorial work was done in the country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion. Hamilton chose for his first editor William Coleman, but the more famous 19th-century Evening Post editor was William Cullen Bryant, a strong Abolitionist. In 1881 Henry Villard took control of the Evening Post, which in 1897 passed to the management of his son, Oswald Garrison Villard, a founding member of both the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1933 the Post changed to tabloid format. Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper in 1939 and her editor Ted Thackrey turned it into a streamlined tabloid format. In 1977 the Post was bought by Rupert Murdoch.
The Murdoch years
While in the past the newspaper had been a long-established politically liberal stalwart, in recent years the paper has adopted a conservative slant, reflecting Murdoch's politics. Murdoch imported the sensationlist "tabloid journalism" style of his British papers such as the The Sun - typified by the Post's lurid 1983 headline:
HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR
Murdoch was forced to sell the paper due to the institution of federal regulations limiting cross media ownership. The Post then ran through a series of unsteady owners: Peter S. Kalikow, a real estate magnate who went bankrupt; Steven Hoffenberg, a financier who pled guilty to securities fraud; and, for two weeks in March 1993, Abe Hirschfeld, a true eccentric who made his fortune building parking garages. The Post was repurchased in 1993 by Murdoch's News Corporation; Murdoch, after receiving his American citizenship (in 1985), was no longer subject to any restriction upon his ownership of U.S. media. Under Murdoch's direction, the paper has affected a populist editorial viewpoint since being re-acquired from Hirschfeld by Murdoch after its near-insolvency in 1993.
Highlights
The paper is also known for its sports section, which has been praised for its comprehensiveness; it begins on the back page, and contains columns about sports in the media by Phil Mushnick.
The New York Post is also well known for its gossip columnists Liz Smith and Cindy Adams. The best known gossip section is 'Page Six', edited by Richard Johnson, which counterintuitively never runs on page six of the paper each day. It is reported that "Page Six" is the first thing many celebrities turn to each morning. Feb. 2006 saw the debut of Page Six: the magazine, which was distributed free inside the paper.
Sales
In recent decades, the daily circulation of the Post slumped from 700,000 in the late 1960s to approximately 418,000. A resurgence in the last five years boosted circulation 49% to 686,207, achieved by lowering the price from 50 to 25 cents. Three of every four Post readers read another paper as well. The Post sold 753,116 column inches of display ads in 2004, only about 45% as much as was run in the New York Daily News.
News Corp. does not release figures, but outsiders estimate the newspaper has been losing $15-30 million a year, and some speculate Murdoch operates the paper at a loss because of the political influence the newspaper affords him. Industry experts suggest Murdoch cannot become profitable as long as the competing Daily News survives, and he may be trying to force that paper to fold or sell out. [1]
Criticisms
Murdoch's Post has been criticized from the beginning for its lurid headlines, sensationalism, and blatant advocacy. In 1980, the Columbia Journalism Review asserted that "the New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem - a force for evil."[1]
Critics feel that the Post allows its editorial positions to shape its story selection and news coverage. But as the Post executive editor, Steven D. Cuozzo, sees it, it was the Post that "broke the elitist media stranglehold on the national agenda." Post supporters cite a series of recent scandals at the supposedly-reputable broadsheet New York Times as proof that this problem is scarcely unique to the Post.
According to a survey conducted by Pace University in 2004, the New York Post was rated the least credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible). [2]
Trivia
- The New York Post, established 1801, describes itself as the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. The Hartford Courant, which describes itself as the nation's oldest continuously-published newspaper, was founded in 1764. The New Hampshire Gazette, which has trademarked its claim of being The Nation's Oldest Newspaper, was founded in 1756.
- When Rupert Murdoch once asked the chairman of Bloomingdale's why he wasn't buying ads in the Post, he was told "because, dear Rupert, your readers are my shop-lifters." [3]
- The Public Enemy song "A Letter to the New York Post" is a complaint about what they believed to be negative and inaccurate coverage the group received from the paper.
- In the spy farce film Top Secret!, one of the villain's henchmen is introduced as "Klaus . . . a moron, who knows only what he reads in the New York Post." The actor, a large man with a blank, rather unintelligent looking expression on his face, is holding a copy of the New York Post as this is said.
- The New York Post is a common target of jokes on the television show Law & Order, often seen at the end of an episode with a ridiculous headline relating to the episode's case, occasionally alongside a copy of the New York Times, which has a more reasonable headline.
See also
External links
References
- ↑ Columbia Journalism Review, volume 18 number 5 (Jan/Feb 1980), page 22-23.
- The Post's New York : Celebrating 200 Years of New York City As Seen Through the Pages and Pictures of the New York Post, 2001
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