New
York Post - (en)
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United
States and the oldest to have been published continually as a daily.
Since 1993, 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. Its
editorial offices are located at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, in
Manhattan.
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,
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, who were dismayed by the election of
Thomas Jefferson and the rise in popularity of the
Democratic-Republican Party. The meeting at which Hamilton first
recruited investors for the new paper took place in the country
weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion. Hamilton chose for his first
editor William Coleman, but the most famous 19th-century Evening Post
editor was the poet and Abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. So well
respected was the Evening Post under Bryant's editorship, it received
praise from the English philosopher, John Stuart Mill, in 1864.
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 Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union. Conservative
Cyrus H. K. Curtis -- publisher of the Ladies Home Journal --
purchased the New York Evening Post in 1924 and turned it into a
tabloid in 1933. J. David Stern purchased the paper in 1934, changed
its name to the New York Post, and restored its size and liberal
perspective.
Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper in 1939; her husband, George
Backer, was named editor and publisher. Her second editor (and third
husband) Ted Thackrey became co-publisher and co-editor with Schiff in
1942, and recast the paper into its current tabloid format. 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. 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.
