New York Post
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
|---|---|
| Type | Daily newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
| Owner | News Corporation |
| Founded | 1801 |
| Headquarters | New York City, NY, U.S. |
| | |
| Website: www.nypost.com | |
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest[citation needed] newspaper published in the United States and the oldest to have been published continually as a daily.<ref>Michael & Edward Emery, The Press and America, 7th edition, Simon & Schuster, 1992, p. 74</ref> Since 1976, it has been owned by Australian-born billionaire Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and, as of October 2006, is the 5th largest newspaper in the United States, behind USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times, having moved ahead of The Washington Post and The New York Daily News.<ref>Audit Bureau of Circulation, Oct. 30, 2006</ref> Its editorial offices are located at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, in Manhattan.
Contents |
[edit] Paper's history
The paper was founded by Alexander Hamilton with about $10,000 from a group of investors in the autumn of 1801 as the New-York Evening Post,<ref> Allan Nevins, The Evening Post: Century of Journalism, Boni and Liveright, 1922, p. 17</ref> a broadsheet quite unlike today's tabloid. Hamilton's co-investors included other New York members of the Federalist Party, such as Robert Troup and Oliver Wolcott,<ref>Nevins, p. 14</ref> who were dismayed by the election of Thomas Jefferson and the rise in popularity of the Democratic-Republican Party.<ref> Emery & Emery, op. cit.</ref> The meeting at which Hamilton first recruited investors for the new paper took place in the country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion.<ref> Nevins, pp. 17-18</ref> Hamilton chose for his first editor William Coleman,<ref> Emery & Emery, op. cit.</ref> but the most famous 19th-century Evening Post editor was the poet and Abolitionist William Cullen Bryant.<ref> Emery & Emery, p. 90</ref> So well respected was the Evening Post under Bryant's editorship, it received praise from the English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, in 1864.<ref>Nevins, p. 341</ref>
In 1881 Henry Villard took control of the Evening Post,<ref>Nevins, p. 438</ref> which in 1897 passed to the management of his son, Oswald Garrison Villard,<ref>Webster's Biographical Dictionary, G. & C. Miriam Co., 1964, p. 1522</ref> a founding member of both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People<ref>Christopher Robert Reed, The Chicago NAACP and the Rise of Black Professional Leadership, 1910-1966, Indiana University Press, 1997, p. 10</ref> and the American Civil Liberties Union.<ref>Emery & Emery, p. 257</ref> Conservative Cyrus H. K. Curtis<ref>New York Newspapers and Editors</ref> -- publisher of the Ladies Home Journal -- purchased the New York Evening Post in 1924<ref>ketupa.net media profiles: curtis</ref> and turned it into a tabloid in 1933.<ref>Ibid.</ref> J. David Stern purchased the paper in 1934, changed its name to the New York Post,<ref>Ibid.</ref> and restored its size and liberal perspective.<ref>Emery & Emery, p. 292</ref>
Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper in 1939; her husband, George Backer, was named editor and publisher. <ref>Deborah G. Felder & Diana L. Rosen, Fifty Jewish Women Who Changed the World, Citadel Press, 2003, p. 164</ref> Her second editor (and third husband) Ted Thackrey became co-publisher and co-editor with Schiff in 1942,<ref>"Dolly's Goodbye," Time Magazine, 31 January 1949</ref> and recast the paper into its current tabloid format.<ref>Emery & Emery, p. 556</ref> James Wechsler became editor of the paper in 1949, running both the news and the editorial pages; in 1961, he turned over the news section to Paul Sann and remained as editorial page editor until 1977. Under Schiff's tenure the Post was devoted to liberalism, supporting trade unions and social welfare, and featured some of the most popular columnists of the time, such as Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Max Lerner, Murray Kempton, Pete Hamill, and Eric Sevareid. In 1976 the Post was bought by Rupert Murdoch for $30 million.<ref>"News Corp: Historical Overview," The Hollywood Reporter, 14 November, 2005</ref> The Post at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City, but its circulation under Schiff had grown by two-thirds.<ref>Emery & Emery, op cit.</ref>
[edit] 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 sensationalist "tabloid journalism" style of his British tabloid papers such as the The Sun, typified by the Post's famous April 15, 1983 headline: HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR. The Post also recycled The Sun's famous GOTCHA headline, this time in reference to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi instead of the Falklands War.
Because of the institution of federal regulations limiting media cross-ownership, Murdoch was forced to sell the paper for $37.6 million in 1988 to Peter S. Kalikow, a real estate magnate with no news experience.<ref>Neil Hickey, "Moment of Truth," Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2004</ref> When Kalikow declared bankruptcy in 1993,<ref>Ibid.</ref>the paper was temporarily managed by Steven Hoffenberg,<ref>Ibid.</ref> a financier who later pled guilty to securities fraud;<ref>"ABS Credit Migrations," Nomura Fixed Income Research, 5 March 2002, p. 20</ref> and, for two weeks, by Abe Hirschfeld,<ref>Bob Fenster, Duh! The Stupid History of the Human Race, McMeel, 2000, p. 13</ref> who made his fortune building parking garages. The Post was repurchased in 1993 by Murdoch's News Corporation, after numerous political officials, including Democratic New York Governor Mario Cuomo, persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to grant Murdoch a permanent waiver from the cross-ownership rules that had forced him to sell the paper five years earlier.<ref>Hickey, op cit.</ref> Under Murdoch's renewed direction, the paper continued its conservative editorial viewpoint.
[edit] Highlights
The paper is well known for its sports section, which has been praised for its comprehensiveness; it begins on the back page, and among other coverage, 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. (Despite the name, since the end of the 20th Century the feature has usually been printed on page 10 or page 12.) It is reported[citation needed] that "Page Six" is the first thing many celebrities turn to each morning. Feb. 2006 saw the debut of Page Six: the magazine, distributed free inside the paper.
[edit] Sales
The daily circulation of the Post slumped in the final years of the Schiff era from 700,000 in the late 1960s[citation needed] to approximately 418,000.[citation needed] A resurgence in the 21st century boosted circulation to more than 660,000 in 2006,<ref>New Harbinger: reported Post circulation of 662,681 as of 14 August 2006</ref> achieved partly by lowering the price from 50 to 25 cents. Three of every four Post readers read another paper as well.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
News Corp. does not release figures, but outsiders estimate the newspaper has been losing $15-30 million a year,[citation needed] and some speculate[citation needed] Murdoch operates the paper at a loss because of the political influence the newspaper affords him. Industry experts suggest that the Post 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.<ref>Anthony Bianco, "Profitless Paper in Relentless Pursuit," Business Week, Feb. 21, 2005</ref>
[edit] Criticisms
Murdoch's Post has been criticized from the beginning for what many consider 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."<ref name="CJR">Columbia Journalism Review, volume 18 number 5 (Jan/Feb 1980), page 22-23.</ref>
Critics say 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."[citation needed] Post supporters cite[citation needed] a series of recent scandals at the broadsheet New York Times as proof that this problem is not 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). <ref>Jonathan Trichter, "Tabloids, Broadsheets, and Broadcast News," Pace Poll Survey Research Study, 16 June 2004</ref>
There have been numerous controversies surrounding the Post:
- On November 8, 2000, the Post printed "BUSH WINS!" in a huge headline, although the election remained in doubt because of the recount needed in Florida. Like the Post, many other newspapers around the country published a similar headline after the four major TV networks called the election for Bush.
- On October 17, 2003, the Post printed an editorial congratulating the Boston Red Sox for having defeated the New York Yankees for the American League pennant. In fact, the Yankees had won the game and taken the pennant. The paper had written two editorials in advance, based on the possible outcomes, and a computer glitch resulted in the wrong editorial being published. As a result, the paper announced that it would no longer write advance editorials.
- On July 4, 2004, the Post ran an article claiming to have learned exclusively that Senator John Kerry, the Democratic Party's Presidential nominee-in-waiting, had selected former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt to be the Party's Vice Presidential nominee. The article, under the headline "KERRY'S CHOICE," ran without a byline [1]. The next day, the Post had to print a new story, "KERRY'S REAL CHOICE," reporting Kerry's actual selection of Senator John Edwards of North Carolina as his running mate.
- On April 21, 2006, several Asian-American advocacy groups protested the use of the headline "Wok This Way" for a Post article about President Bush's meeting with the president of the People's Republic China. <ref>Paul H.B. Shin, "Post's 'Wok' Head No Joke to Asians," New York Daily News, 22 April 2006</ref>
- On September 27, 2006 the Post published an article called "Powder Puff Spooks Keith" that made fun of Countdown host Keith Olbermann receiving an anthrax threat [2].
The Post and the Daily News often take potshots at each other's articles and their accuracy, particularly in their respective gossip-page items, saying that the juicy information printed about some celebrity or other has been checked, and that the celebrity or his/her publicist has denied it.
[edit] 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 as a semi-weekly paper; it didn't begin publishing daily until 1836. The New Hampshire Gazette, which has trademarked its claim of being The Nation's Oldest Newspaper, was founded in 1756, also as a weekly. Moreover, since the 1890s it has only been published on weekends.
- When Rupert Murdoch once asked the chairman of Bloomingdale's why he wasn't buying ads in the Post, he was allegedly told "because your readers are my shoplifters." (This anecdote has also been told about other publications, and the Bloomingdale's chairman, Marvin Traub, has denied ever saying this about the Post.)<ref>Marvin Traub, Like No Other Store...:The Bloomingdale's Legend and the Revolution in American Marketing, Crown, 1993</ref>
- The Public Enemy song "A Letter to the New York Post" from their album Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black is a complaint about what they believed to be negative and inaccurate coverage the group received from the paper.
[edit] Fictional references
- In the Spider-Man films, the Daily Bugle appears to be based on the Post. The Post explicitly takes the place of the Bugle in the Daredevil film.
- A fictional paper, the New York Ledger, clearly modeled on the New York Post, with similar layout and loud tabloid style often appears on the television show Law & Order.
- 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." Actor John Carney, 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 Post has also appeared in such films as The Manchurian Candidate (the original version with Frank Sinatra), Men in Black and Working Girl.
- In the 1988 film Married to the Mob, an FBI agent played by Oliver Platt holds up a newspaper to his partner, played by Matthew Modine. Although the paper is called the New York News, it is otherwise a perfect match for the Post. The headline, "HAMBURGER HOMICIDE," discusses a mob shootout at a fictional fast food chain called Burger World, in which a boss played by Dean Stockwell not only survived an attempted hit which killed his driver, but also killed the opposing hitmen, including the drive-thru attendant wearing the chain's mascot clown uniform and makeup, leading to the line, "Some clown just tried to kill me!"
- The New New York Post has occasionally appeared in Futurama.[citation needed]
- In October 1984, a parody called "The Post New York Post" was published, ostensibly the issue from the day after the start of World War III. The front-page headline was "KABOOM!" The subhead read, "Michael Jackson, 80 million others dead."[citation needed]
[edit] Further reading
- 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
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- New York Post Online official site
- Circulation & Readership
[edit] References
<references/>
da:New York Post de:New York Post fr:New York Post he:New York Post nl:New York Post ja:ニューヨーク・ポスト sv:New York Post yi:ניו יאָרק פּאָוסט
