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The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
daily tabloid newspaper published in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established in 1801 by Federalist and
Founding Father The following list of national founding figures is a record, by country, of people who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e. ...
Alexander Hamilton, and became a respected broadsheet in the 19th century under the name ''New York Evening Post''. Its most famous 19th-century editor was
William Cullen Bryant William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the ''New York Evening Post''. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry ...
. In the mid-20th century, the paper was owned by Dorothy Schiff, a devoted liberal, who developed its tabloid format. In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the ''Post'' for US$30.5 million. Since 1993, the ''Post'' has been owned by Murdoch's News Corp. Its distribution ranked 4th in the US in 2019.


History


19th century

The ''Post'' was founded by Alexander Hamilton with about US$10,000 () from a group of investors in the autumn of 1801 as the ''New-York Evening Post'', a broadsheet. Hamilton's co-investors included other New York members of the Federalist Party, such as Robert Troup and
Oliver Wolcott Oliver Wolcott Sr. (November 20, 1726 December 1, 1797) was an American Founding Father and politician. He was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation as a representative of Connecticut, and t ...
, who were dismayed by the election of Thomas Jefferson as U.S. president and the rise in popularity of the Democratic-Republican Party.Emery & Emery, p. 74. The meeting at which Hamilton first recruited investors for the new paper took place in
Archibald Gracie Archibald Gracie (June 25, 1755 – April 11, 1829) was a Scottish-born shipping magnate and early American businessman and merchant in New York City and Virginia whose spacious home, Gracie Mansion, now serves as the residence of the Mayor of N ...
's then-country weekend villa that is now
Gracie Mansion Archibald Gracie Mansion (commonly called Gracie Mansion) is the official residence of the Mayor of New York City. Built in 1799, it is located in Carl Schurz Park, at East End Avenue and 88th Street in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan. ...
. Hamilton chose William Coleman as his first editor. The most famous 19th-century ''Evening Post'' editor was the poet and
abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...
William Cullen Bryant William Cullen Bryant (November 3, 1794 – June 12, 1878) was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the ''New York Evening Post''. Born in Massachusetts, he started his career as a lawyer but showed an interest in poetry ...
. So well respected was the ''Evening Post'' under Bryant's editorship, it received praise from the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in 1864. William Leggett, in addition to literary and drama reviews, began to write political editorials. Leggett's espoused a fierce opposition to
central banking A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union, and oversees their commercial banking system. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central ba ...
and support for the organization of labor unions. He was a member of the Equal Rights Party. He became a co-owner and editor at the ''Post'' in 1831, eventually working as sole editor of the newspaper while Bryant traveled in Europe in 1834 through 1835. Another co-owner of the paper was John Bigelow. Born in Malden-on-Hudson, New York, John Bigelow, Sr. graduated in 1835 from Union College, where he was a member of the
Sigma Phi The Sigma Phi Society () was founded on the Fourth of March in the year 1827, on the campus of Union College as a part of the Union Triad in Schenectady, New York. It is the second Greek fraternal organization founded in the United States.
Society and the Philomathean Society, and was admitted to the bar in 1838. From 1849 to 1861, he was one of the editors and co-owners of the ''Evening Post''. Another owner with Bryan and Bigelow was Isaac Henderson.Mayer-Sommer, Alan P. (May 2010).
o many controls; so little control: The case of Isaac Henderson, Navy Agent at New York, 1861-4
. '' Accounting History''. 15 (2): 173–198. doi:10.1177/1032373209359324. ISSN 1032-3732. S2CID 155059092. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
This led to the involvement of his son Isaac Henderson Jr. who became the paper's publisher, stockholder, and member of its board in 1877, just five years after graduating from college." Isaac Austin Henderson", ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', vol. Volume 7, 1913, retrieved May 16, 2022 Henderson Sr.'s thirty year tenure with the Evening Post ended in 1879 when it was learned that he had defrauded Bryant the entire time. Henderson Jr. sold his interest in the newspaper in 1881. In 1881,
Henry Villard Henry Villard (April 10, 1835 – November 12, 1900) was an American journalist and financier who was an early president of the Northern Pacific Railway. Born and raised by Ferdinand Heinrich Gustav Hilgard in the Rhenish Palatinate of the Kin ...
took control of the ''Evening Post'', as well as '' The Nation'', which became the ''Post''s weekly edition. With this acquisition, the paper was managed by the triumvirate of Carl Schurz,
Horace White Horace White (October 7, 1865 – November 27, 1943) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was the 37th Governor of New York from October 6, 1910 to December 31, 1910. Life He attended Syracuse Central High School, Cornell Un ...
, and Edwin L. Godkin. When Schurz left the paper in 1883, Godkin became editor-in-chief. White became editor-in-chief in 1899, and remained in that role until his retirement in 1903. In 1897, both publications passed to the management of Villard's son, Oswald Garrison Villard, a founding member of both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union.


1918 to 1976

Villard sold the paper in 1918, after widespread allegations of pro-German sympathies during
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
hurt its circulation. The new owner was Thomas Lamont, a senior partner in the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. Unable to stem the paper's financial losses, he sold it to a consortium of 34 financial and reform political leaders, headed by
Edwin Francis Gay Edwin Francis Gay (October 27, 1867 – February 8, 1946) was an American economist, Professor of Economic History and first Dean of the Harvard Business School.Morgen Witzel (2004) "Edwin Gay (1867-1946)" in: ''Fifty key figures in management'' ...
, dean of the Harvard Business School, whose members included
Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
. Conservative Cyrus H. K. Curtis, publisher of the '' Ladies Home Journal'', purchased the ''Evening Post'' in 1924 and briefly turned it into a non-sensational tabloid in 1933. In 1928, Wilella Waldorf became drama editor at the ''Evening Post''. She was one of the first women to hold an editorial role at the newspaper, During her time at the ''Evening Post'', she was the only female first-string critic on a New York newspaper. She was proceeded by Clara Savage Littledale, the first woman reporter ever hired by the ''Post'' and the editor of the woman's page in 1914.Littledale, Clara Savage. Edited by Barbara Sicherman, 1934– and Carol Hurd Green, 1935–; in Notable American Women: The Modern Period (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 458–459 In 1934, J. David Stern purchased the paper, changed its name to the ''New York Post'', and restored its broadsheet size and liberal perspective. For four months of that same year, future U.S. Senator from Alaska Ernest Gruening was an editor of the paper. In 1939, Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper. 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. Together, they recast the newspaper into its modern-day tabloid format. In 1948, ''
The Bronx Home News ''The Bronx Home News'' (originally ''The Home News'') was a newspaper from The Bronx. ''The Bronx Home News'' was originally known as ''The Home News.'' It was founded in 1907 by James O'Flaherty, Jr. with its initial publication on January 26, ...
'' merged with it. In 1949, James Wechsler became editor of the paper, running both the news and the editorial pages. In 1961, he turned over the news section to Paul Sann and stayed on as editorial page editor until 1980. 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
Joseph Cookman Joseph Cookman (February 6, 1899 – August 12, 1944) was an American journalist, critic and a founder of The Newspaper Guild. Life and career Early life Born in 1899, in Batley, England, Joseph was the oldest of three children born to John ...
, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt,
Max Lerner Max Lerner (December 20, 1902 – June 5, 1992) was a Russian Empire-born American journalist and educator known for his controversial syndicated column. Background Maxwell Alan Lerner was born on December 20, 1902 in Minsk, in the Russian Empi ...
, Murray Kempton, Pete Hamill, and
Eric Sevareid Arnold Eric Sevareid (November 26, 1912 – July 9, 1992) was an American author and CBS news journalist from 1939 to 1977. He was one of a group of elite war correspondents who were hired by CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow and nicknamed " Murrow's ...
, in addition to theatre critic Richard Watts Jr. and gossip columnist Earl Wilson.


1976 to present

In November 1976, it was announced that Australian Rupert Murdoch had bought the ''Post'' from Schiff with the intention she would remain as a consultant for five years. It later emerged that Murdoch bought the newspaper for US$30.5 million. The ''Post'' at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City and its circulation under Schiff had grown by two-thirds, particularly after the failure of the competing ''
World Journal Tribune The ''New York World Journal Tribune'' (''WJT'', and hence the nickname ''The Widget'') was an evening daily newspaper published in New York City from September 1966 until May 1967. The ''World Journal Tribune'' represented an attempt to save th ...
''; however, the rising cost of operating an afternoon daily in a city with worsening daytime traffic congestion, combined with mounting competition from expanded local radio and TV news cut into the ''Post''s profitability, though it made money from 1949 until Schiff's final year of ownership, when it lost $500,000. The paper has lost money ever since. In late October 1995, the ''Post'' announced plans to change its Monday through Saturday publication schedule and begin issuing a Sunday edition, which it last published briefly in 1989. On April 14, 1996, the ''Post'' delivered its new Sunday edition at the cost of 50 cents per paper by keeping its size to 120 pages. The amount, significantly less than Sunday editions from ''
The New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in t ...
'' and ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', was part of ''Post''s efforts "to find a niche in the nation's most competitive newspaper market". Because of the institution of federal regulations limiting media cross-ownership after Murdoch's purchase of WNEW-TV (now
WNYW WNYW (channel 5) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside Secaucus, New Jersey–licensed MyNetworkTV flagsh ...
) and four other stations from
Metromedia Metromedia (also often MetroMedia) was an American media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and controlled Orion Pictures from 1988 to 1997. Metromedia was established in 1956 after the DuMon ...
to launch the Fox Broadcasting Company, Murdoch was forced to sell the paper for $37.6 million in 1988 to
Peter S. Kalikow Peter Stephen Kalikow (born December 1, 1942) is president of H. J. Kalikow & Company, LLC, a New York City-based real estate firm. He is a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA),
, a real-estate magnate with no news experience. In 1988, the ''Post'' hired Jane Amsterdam, founding editor of '' Manhattan, inc.'', as its first female editor, and within six months the paper had toned down the sensationalist headlines. Within a year, Amsterdam was forced out by Kalikow, who reportedly told her "credible doesn't sell ... Your big scoops are great, but they don't sell more papers." When Kalikow declared bankruptcy in 1993, the paper was temporarily managed by Steven Hoffenberg, a financier who later pleaded guilty to
securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
fraud, and for two weeks by
Abe Hirschfeld Abraham Jacob Hirschfeld (December 20, 1919 – August 9, 2005) was an American real estate investor, Broadway producer and political candidate from New York City. He was the owner of several buildings in Manhattan. He served as treasurer for the ...
, who made his fortune building parking garages. After a staff revolt against the Hoffenberg-Hirschfeld partnership, which included publication of an issue whose front page featured the iconic masthead picture of founder Alexander Hamilton with a single teardrop running down his cheek, the ''Post'' was again purchased in 1993 by Murdoch's News Corporation. This came about after numerous political officials, including Democratic governor of New York
Mario Cuomo Mario Matthew Cuomo (, ; June 15, 1932 – January 1, 2015) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as ...
, persuaded the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
to grant Murdoch a permanent waiver from the cross-ownership rules that had forced him to sell the paper five years earlier. Without that FCC ruling, the paper would have shut down. In December 2012, Murdoch announced that Jesse Angelo had been appointed publisher. Various branches of Murdoch's media groups, 21st Century Fox's
Endemol Shine North America Endemol Shine North America is the American division of Endemol Shine Group that was founded on March 15, 2002 as a merger of Shine Americas, Shine USA, and Reveille Productions. Endemol Shine North America produces and distributes scripted and ...
and News Corp' New York Post created a ''Page Six TV'' nightly gossip show based and named after the Post's gossip section. A test run in July would occur on
Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...
. The show garnered the highest ratings of a nationally syndicated entertainment newsmagazine in a decade when it debuted in 2017. With ''Page Six TV''s success, the ''New York Post'' formed New York Post Entertainment, a scripted and unscripted television entertainment division, in July 2018 with Troy Searer as president. In 2017, the ''New York Post'' was reported to be the preferred newspaper of U.S. president Donald Trump, who maintains frequent contact with its owner Murdoch. The ''Post'' had promoted Trump's celebrity since at least the 1980s. In October 2020, the ''Post'' endorsed Trump for re-election, citing his "promises made, promises kept" policy. Weeks after Trump was defeated and he sought to overturn the election results, the ''Post'' published a front-page editorial asking the president to "stop the insanity", stating that he was "cheering for an undemocratic coup", commenting: "If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match." The ''Post'' characterized Trump attorney
Sidney Powell Sidney Katherine Powell (born 1955) is an American attorney, former federal prosecutor, and conspiracy theorist who attempted to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, which led the State Bar of Texas to seek sanctions again ...
as a "crazy person", and his former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s suggestion to declare martial law as "tantamount to treason." Around March 2021, Keith Poole, a top editor at '' The Sun'', another Murdoch-owned tabloid, was appointed as the editor in chief of the ''New York Post'' Group. Around the same time, at least eight journalists had left the paper.


Content, coverage, and controversies

The ''Post'' has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and
conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
bias. In 1980, the '' Columbia Journalism Review'' stated that the "''New York Post'' is no longer merely a journalistic problem. It is a social problem—a force for evil."'' Columbia Journalism Review'', volume 18, number 5 (Jan/Feb 1980), pp. 22–23. The ''Post'' has been accused of contorting its news coverage to suit Murdoch's business needs, in particular avoiding subjects which could be unflattering to the government of the People's Republic of China, where Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television. In a 2019 article in '' The New Yorker'', Ken Auletta wrote that Murdoch "doesn't hesitate to use the ''Post'' to belittle his business opponents", and went on to say that Murdoch's support for Edward I. Koch while he was running for mayor of New York "spilled over onto the news pages of the ''Post'', with the paper regularly publishing glowing stories about Koch and sometimes savage accounts of his four primary opponents." According to ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', Ronald Reagan's campaign team credited Murdoch and the Post for his victory in New York in the 1980 United States presidential election. Reagan later "waived a prohibition against owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market", allowing Murdoch to continue to control the ''New York Post'' and '' The Boston Herald'' while expanding into television. In 1997, ''Post'' executive editor Steven D. Cuozzo responded to criticism by saying that the ''Post'' "broke the elitist media stranglehold on the national agenda." In a 2004 survey conducted by
Pace University Pace University is a private university with its main campus in New York City and secondary campuses in Westchester County, New York. It was established in 1906 by the brothers Homer St. Clair Pace and Charles A. Pace as a business school. Pace ...
, the ''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). The ''Post'' commonly publishes news reports based entirely on reporting from other sources without independent corroboration. In January 2021, the paper forbade the use of
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
, MSNBC, ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', and ''The New York Times'' as sole sources for such stories.


Style

Murdoch imported the
tabloid journalism Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the tabloid newspaper format: a small-sized newspaper also known a ...
style of many of his Australian and British newspapers, such as '' The Sun'', which remains one of the highest selling daily newspapers in the United Kingdom. This style was typified by the ''Post''s famous headlines such as "Headless body in topless bar" (written by Vincent Musetto). In its 35th-anniversary edition, '' New York'' magazine listed this as one of the greatest headlines. It also has five other ''Post'' headlines in its "Greatest Tabloid Headlines" list. The ''Post'' has also been criticized for incendiary front-page headlines, such as one referring to the co-chairmen of the Iraq Study Group
James Baker James Addison Baker III (born April 28, 1930) is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President ...
and
Lee Hamilton Lee Herbert Hamilton (born April 20, 1931) is an American politician and lawyer from Indiana. He is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and a former member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the ...
—as " surrender monkeys", and another on the murder of Hasidic landlord
Menachem Stark Menachem ("Max") Stark (July 15, 1974 – January 3, 2014) was an American real estate developer whose badly burned body was found smoldering in a dumpster outside a gas station in Great Neck, New York. The cousins Erskine Felix, Kendel Felix, ...
reading "Slumlord found burned in dumpster. Who didn’t want him dead?"


Page Six

The gossip section Page Six was created by James Brady and is currently edited by Emily Smith. Columnist
Richard Johnson Richard or Dick Johnson may refer to: Academics * Dick Johnson (academic) (1929–2019), Australian academic * Richard C. Johnson (1930–2003), professor of electrical engineering * Richard A. Johnson, artist and professor at the University of ...
edited Page Six for 25 years. February 2006 saw the debut of ''Page Six Magazine'', distributed free inside the paper. In September 2007, it started to be distributed weekly in the Sunday edition of the paper. In January 2009, publication of ''Page Six Magazine'' was cut to four times a year. Beginning with the 2017–18 television season, a daily syndicated series known as ''Page Six TV'' came to air, produced by
20th Television 20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Comp ...
, which was part of the 21st Century Fox side of Rupert Murdoch's holdings, and
Endemol Shine North America Endemol Shine North America is the American division of Endemol Shine Group that was founded on March 15, 2002 as a merger of Shine Americas, Shine USA, and Reveille Productions. Endemol Shine North America produces and distributes scripted and ...
. The show was originally hosted by comedian
John Fugelsang John Joseph Fugelsang (born September 3, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, writer, television host, political commentator and television personality. Early life and education Fugelsang was born on Long Island, New York. Of Danish, German, ...
, with contributions from ''Page Six'' and ''Post'' writers (including Carlos Greer), along with regular panelists Elizabeth Wagmeister from ''
Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' and Bevy Smith. In March 2018, Fugelsang left the show, with the expectation that a new host would be named, though by the end of the season, it was announced that Wagmeister, Greer and Smith would be retained as equal co-hosts. In April 2019, it was confirmed that the series would end after May 2019; by then, it was last in average viewership out of all U.S. syndicated newsmagazine programs, behind the similar tabloid-inspired program '' Daily Mail TV''.


Erroneous reporting and defamation cases arising from bombings

Richard Jewell Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlant ...
, a security guard wrongly suspected of being the Centennial Olympic Park bomber, sued the ''Post'' in 1998, alleging that the newspaper had libeled him in several articles, headlines, photographs, and
editorial cartoon A political cartoon, a form of editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine a ...
s. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska largely denied the ''Post''s motion to dismiss, allowing the suit to proceed. The ''Post'' subsequently settled the case for an undisclosed sum. In several stories on the day of the 2013
Boston Marathon bombing The Boston Marathon bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that took place during the annual Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two terrorists, brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, planted two homemade pressure cooker bombs, w ...
, the ''Post'' inaccurately reported that twelve people had died, and that a Saudi national had been taken into custody as a suspect, which was denied by Boston Police. Three days later, on April 18, the ''Post'' featured a full-page cover photo of two young men at the Boston marathon with the headline " Bag Men" (a term that implies criminality) and erroneously claimed they were being sought by police. The men, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, were not considered suspects, and the ''Post'' was heavily criticized for the apparent accusation. Then-editor Col Allan defended the story, saying they had not referred to the men as "suspects". The two men later sued the ''Post'' for libel, and the suit was settled in 2014 on undisclosed terms.


Accusations of racism

In 1989, the ''Post'' described the five black and Latino teenagers arrested following the rape and assault of a white woman in Central Park as coming "from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knives, indifference, and ignorance ..a land of no fathers", and having set out "to smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape" people who were "rich" and "white". The teenagers’ convictions were later overturned after the confession of a serial rapist, which was confirmed with DNA evidence. In 2006, several Asian-American advocacy groups protested the use of the headline "Wok This Way" for a ''Post'' article about U.S. president George W. Bush's meeting with Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China. In 2009, the ''Post'' ran a cartoon by Sean Delonas of a white police officer saying to another white police officer who has just shot a chimpanzee on the street: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The cartoon dually referred to U.S. president Obama and to the recent rampage of Travis, a former chimpanzee actor. It was criticized as racist,Roland S. Martin
Commentary: NY Post cartoon is racist and careless
, CNN, February 18, 2009, Accessed February 19, 2009.
with civil rights activist
Al Sharpton Alfred Charles Sharpton Jr. (born October 3, 1954) is an American civil rights activist, Baptist minister, talk show host and politician. Sharpton is the founder of the National Action Network. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democrati ...
calling the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys." The ''Post'' defended itself by stating that the cartoon was deliberately misinterpreted by its critics. The
Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe ...
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 blacks received from the paper. In 2019, the ''Post'' displayed an image of the World Trade Center in flames targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. A quote by Representative Omar was included. The Yemeni American Merchant Association announced a formal boycott of the paper and ten of the most prominent Yemeni bodega owners in New York agreed to stop selling the paper. As of June 2019, the boycott had extended to over 900 individual stores. Yemeni-Americans own about half of the 10,000 bodegas in New York City. In 2020, the ''Post'' published an article with the headline "Suspected teen gunman Kyle Rittenhouse spotted cleaning
Kenosha Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenosh ...
graffiti before shooting". In response, actress
Viola Davis Viola Davis (; born August 11, 1965) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, she is the only African-American to achieve the Triple Crow ...
posted a photo on Instagram comparing the headline with the ''Post'''s 2012 headline about
Trayvon Martin Trayvon Benjamin Martin (February 5, 1995 – February 26, 2012) was a 17-year-old African-American from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida, by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic American. Martin had accompa ...
, which read: "Trayvon Martin had traces of marijuana in system at time of death, autopsy reveals." The caption stated: "We need to boycott publications that continue to criminalize innocent eople of colorafter they have been murdered by the law!!!"


Hunter Biden laptop story

On October 14, 2020, three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the ''Post'' published a front-page story purporting to reveal "smoking gun" emails recovered from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden at a computer repair store in Wilmington, Delaware. The only sources named in the story were Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and strategy advisor
Steve Bannon Stephen Kevin Bannon (born November 27, 1953) is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist in the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump during t ...
. The story came under heavy criticism from other news sources and anonymous reporters at the ''Post'' itself for "flimsy" reporting, including questions about the reliability of its sourcing and the lack of outreach to either Hunter Biden or the Joe Biden campaign for pre-publication comment. More than fifty former U.S. intelligence officials signed an open letter stating that they were "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role" in the story, but emphasized that "we do not know if the emails... are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement." The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said during a Fox News interview that "the intelligence community doesn’t believe that he emails originated from Russian disinformationbecause there is no intelligence that supports that." Ratcliffe, a Trump loyalist, had previously made public assertions that contradicted professional intelligence assessments. The FBI took possession of the laptop in late 2019 and reported that they had "nothing to add" to Ratcliffe's remarks concerning Russian disinformation. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' reported days after the ''Post'' story that "no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation." Amid mounting pressure, the FBI wrote to Senator Ron Johnson and suggested it had not found any Russian disinformation on the laptop. It was unclear what the Justice Department officials knew about the FBI investigation at the time. Fox News reported that the laptop was seized as part of an investigation into money laundering, but did not make clear if the investigation involved Hunter Biden. ''The New York Times'' reported in December 2020 that investigators had initially examined possible money laundering by Hunter Biden but did not find evidence to justify further investigation. As of 2022, '' Vox'' reported that no evidence had emerged "that the laptop's leak was a Russian plot." In March 2022, ''The New York Times'' and ''The Washington Post'' confirmed that some of the emails were authentic. In April 2022, the editorial board of ''The Washington Post'' wrote the Biden laptop story provided "an opportunity for a reckoning" by American media to ensure "accurate and relevant" stories are covered. They noted that:
"The investigation adds new details and confirms old ones about the ways in which Joe Biden's family has profited from trading overseas on his name — something for which the president deserves criticism for tacitly condoning. What it does not do, despite some conservatives' insistence otherwise, is prove that President Biden acted corruptly."
Joan Donovan Joan Donovan (born 1979/1980) is an American social scientist researcher and lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, an affiliate at Data and Society, and is research director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project ...
, the research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, said that "This is arguably the most well-known story the ''New York Post'' has ever published and it endures as a story because it was initially suppressed by social media companies and jeered by politicians and pundits alike". After the 2016 election, social media companies were criticized for allowing false political information to proliferate on their platforms, including from Russian intelligence, suggesting it may have assisted Trump's election. Twitter and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...
initially limited the spread of the ''Post'' story on their platforms, citing supposed policies restricting the sharing of hacked material and personal information; Twitter also temporarily suspended the ''Posts account. This decision proved controversial, with many critics, including Republican senator Ted Cruz, deriding it as censorship. NPR reported that Twitter initially declined to comment how it reached this decision or what evidence it had supporting this. ''The New York Times'' initially reported that the story had been pitched to other outlets, including Fox News, which declined to publish it due to concerns over its reliability. The ''Times'' also reported that two writers at the ''Post'' declined to have their names attached to the story, and ultimately the story only listed two bylines: Gabrielle Fonrouge, who "had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article" and was unaware of her byline prior to the story's publication, and Emma-Jo Morris, a former producer for Fox News's '' Hannity'' who had no prior bylines with the ''Post''. In response to the concerns about the veracity of the article, former ''Post'' editor-in-chief and current advisor Colin Allan responded in an email to the ''Times'' that “the senior editors at ''The Post'' made the decision to publish the Biden files after several days’ hard work established its merit." Giuliani said he gave the story to the ''Post'' because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out." The accuracy of the Hunter Biden laptop story resulted in increased scrutiny of Twitter and Facebook limiting the spread of the story by conservatives, who argued that their actions "proves Big Tech's bias". NBC News reported on November 1 that "no evidence has emerged that the documents are the product of Russian disinformation, as some experts initially suggested, but many questions remain about how the materials got into the hands of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has met with Russian agents in his effort to dig up dirt on Biden."
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
reported that Giuliani and other Trump allies met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, whom the U.S. government later assessed was a longtime Russian intelligence agent, sanctioning him for distributing disinformation about Joe Biden. Earlier in September 2020, the ''New York Post'' itself reported that Derkach was a "pro-Russian member of Kiev's parliament" and stated "Derkach also met with former New York Mayor Giuliani in Kiev in December last year to dig up dirt on Biden."


Other controversies

In 1997, a national news story concerning Rebecca Sealfon's victory in the Scripps National Spelling Bee circulated. Sealfon was sponsored by the '' Daily News'', a direct in-market competitor. The ''Post'' published a picture of her but altered the photograph to remove the name of the ''Daily News'' as printed on a placard she was wearing. In 2004, the ''Post'' ran a full-page cover photo of 19-year-old New York University student Diana Chien jumping to her death from the twenty-fourth story of a building. In 2012, the ''Post'' was criticized for running a photograph of a man struggling to climb back up onto a subway platform as a train approached, along with the headline "DOOMED." Facing questions over why he didn't help the man, the photographer claimed he was not strong enough and had been attempting to use the flash on his camera to alert the driver of the oncoming train. In December 2020, the ''Post'' published a story outing an emergency medical technician who made additional income from posting explicit photographs of herself to the subscription website
OnlyFans OnlyFans is an internet content subscription service based in London, United Kingdom. The service is used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography, but it also hosts the work of other content creators, such as physical fitness exper ...
. The publication was widely criticized on social media as "
doxxing Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this in ...
someone simply for trying to earn a living." In April 2021, Facebook blocked users from sharing a ''Post'' story about home real estate purchases by Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, saying that it violated its privacy and personal information policy. In response, the ''Post'' argued that it was an arbitrary decision since other newspapers, magazines and websites highlight the real estate purchases of high status individuals.
News Media Alliance The News Media Alliance (formerly known as the Newspaper Association of America until 2016Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
were being distributed to migrant children at an intake facility in Long Beach, California. Fox News then published a story about the matter, followed by numerous Republican politicians and pundits commenting on it, in some cases speculating that taxpayers were funding the supposed book handouts for Harris's personal profit. Responding to questions from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, White House press secretary
Jen Psaki Jennifer Rene Psaki (; born c. 1978) is an American television political analyst who currently works for MSNBC. Previously, she was a political advisor who served under both the Obama and Biden administrations. Immediately prior to working for ...
expressed no knowledge of the matter; the ''Post'' then published a new story headlined "Psaki has no answers when asked about Harris' book being given to child migrants." Four days after the original publication, the ''Post'' replaced the story with a new version clarifying that just one Harris book had been donated by a community member but maintained that it was an "open-arms gesture by the Biden administration", though there was no evidence of the administration's involvement. Laura Italiano, the author of the story, resigned that day, asserting she had been "ordered" to write it. In October 2022, a rogue employee of the ''Post'' published a series of racist, violent and sexually explicit headlines on its Twitter account. Shortly after these headlines released, a spokesperson for the ''Post'' stated that the "vile and reprehensible" headlines were the result of a hack and were immediately removed, and that the incident was under investigation. The spokesperson later stated that "the unauthorized conduct was committed by an employee, and the employee has been terminated."


"Oldest" claim

The 1801-established newspaper describes itself as the oldest continuously published daily U.S. newspaper. However, the ''New York Post'' halted publication during strikes in 1958 and in 1978. Therefore, '' The Providence Journal'' is understood as the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the U.S. While it began daily publication on July 21, 1829 (28 years after the New York Post), it has not halted daily publication once since its founding, unlike the New York Daily Post. '' The Hartford Courant'', generally understood to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in America, was founded in 1764; however, it was founded as a semi-weekly paper and did not begin publishing daily until 1836, 35 years after the ''New York Post'' began doing so, and cannot be considered a true challenge to the ''New York Post'' claim as "the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper", despite it being an older continuously published paper than the ''New York Post''. '' The New Hampshire Gazette'' trademarked its claim of being ''The Nation's Oldest Newspaper'', as it was founded in 1756; however, it was founded as a weekly paper and since the 1890s has only published on the weekends. To date, ''The New Hampshire Gazette'' has never published daily and therefore cannot be considered a challenger to the ''Providence Journal'' and ''New York Post'' claims to being the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper.


Operations

The 1906 Old New York Evening Post Building is a designated landmark. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It occupied the building until 1926 when a new main office for the ''Post'' was established at 75 West Street in the New York Evening Post Building. The building remained in use by the ''Post'' until 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. In 1967, Schiff bought 210 South Street, the former headquarters of the '' New York Journal American'', which closed a year earlier. The building became an instantly recognizable symbol for the ''Post''. In 1995, owner Rupert Murdoch relocated ''Post''s news and business offices to the News Corporation headquarters tower at 1211
Avenue of the Americas Sixth Avenue – also known as Avenue of the Americas, although this name is seldom used by New Yorkers, p.24 – is a major thoroughfare in New York City's borough of Manhattan, on which traffic runs northbound, or "uptown". It is commercial ...
(Sixth Avenue) in midtown Manhattan. The ''Post'' shares this building with Fox News Channel and '' The Wall Street Journal'', both of which are also owned by Murdoch. Both the ''Post'' and the New York City edition of the ''Journal'' are printed at a state-of-the-art printing plant in the borough of
The Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. The
Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union The Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union is an independent union for employees of newspapers based in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In 2009, for the first time in its history, The union affiliated with another, choosing the International B ...
has been delivering the newspaper "since the early 1900s."


Website

In 1996, the ''New York Post'' launched an Internet version of the paper.


Decider

The ''New York Post'' launched the website ''Decider'' in 2014 to provide recommendations for streaming services. The website's first and only editor-in-chief is Mark Graham. Graham said that this service would "strike a nice balance between visual imagery and the written word, and come from a place of pop culture omniscience." In 2019, Decider signed a deal with app provider ''Reelgood'' to provide Reelgood widget links at the bottom of each review and would channel some advertising revenue to both companies. The value of the deal was not disclosed.


Sales

The daily circulation of the ''Post'' decreased in the final years of the Schiff era from 700,000 around 1967–68, to approximately 517,000 by the time she sold the paper to Murdoch in 1976. Under Murdoch, the ''Post'' launched a morning edition to compete directly with the rival tabloid '' Daily News'' in 1978, prompting the ''Daily News'' to retaliate with a PM edition called ''Daily News Tonight''. But the PM edition suffered the same problems with worsening daytime traffic that the afternoon ''Post'' experienced and the ''Daily News'' ultimately folded ''Tonight'' in 1981. By that time, circulation of the all-day ''Post'' soared to a peak of 962,000, the bulk of the increase attributed to its morning edition (It set a single-day record of 1.1 million on August 11, 1977, with the news of the arrest the night before of
David Berkowitz David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco, June 1, 1953), also known as the Son of Sam and .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer who pleaded guilty to eight shootings that began in New York City on July 29, 1976. Berkowitz ...
, the infamous "Son of Sam" serial killer who terrorized New York for much of that summer). However, the ''Post'' lost so much money that Murdoch decided to shut down the ''Post''s PM edition in 1982, turning the ''Post'' into a morning-only daily. The ''Post'' and the ''Daily News'' have been locked in a bitter circulation war ever since. A resurgence during the first decade of the 21st century saw ''Post'' circulation rise to 724,748 by April 2007, achieved partly by lowering the price from 50 cents to 25 cents. In October 2006, the ''Post'' surpassed the ''Daily News'' in circulation for the first time, only to see the ''Daily News'' overtake its rival a few months later. In 2010, the ''Post''s daily circulation was 525,004, just 10,000 behind the ''Daily News''. , the ''Post'' was the fourth-largest newspaper in the United States by circulation, while the ''Daily News'' was ranked eighth. The ''Post'' has remained unprofitable since Murdoch first purchased it from Dorothy Schiff in 1976, and was on the brink of folding when Murdoch bought it back in 1993, with at least one media report in 2012 indicating that ''Post'' loses up to $70 million a year. One commentator has suggested that the ''Post'' cannot become profitable as long as the competing ''Daily News'' survives, and that Murdoch may be trying to force the ''Daily News'' to fold or sell out, leaving the two papers in an intractable war of attrition.


See also

* Media in New York City


References


Further reading

* Crittle, Simon. ''The Last Godfather: The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino''. New York: Berkley, 2006. . * Felix, Antonia, and the editors of ''New York Post''. ''The Post's New York: Celebrating 200 Years of New York City As Seen Through the Pages and Pictures of the New York Post''. New York: HarperResource, 2001. . * Flood, John, and Jim McGough
"People v. Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union of New York and Vicinity"
Organized Crime & Political Corruption. Accessed June 5, 2008. * Nardoza, Robert

The United States Attorney's Office: Eastern District of New York press release. July 12, 2006. Accessed June 5, 2008.

Penal Law: A Web. Accessed June 5, 2008. * Robbins, Tom. ttp://www.villagevoice.com/news/0110,robbins,22839,1.html "The Newspaper Racket: Tough Guys and Wiseguys in the Truck Drivers Union" '' The Village Voice'', March 7–13, 2001. Accessed June 5, 2008.


External links

* {{News Corporation 1801 establishments in New York (state) Alexander Hamilton Conservative media in the United States Daily newspapers published in New York City News Corporation subsidiaries New Right (United States) Publications established in 1801 New York City local newspapers, in print