The ''Bristol Post'' is a city/regional five-day-a-week (formerly appearing six days per week) newspaper covering news in the city of
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
, including stories from the whole of
Greater Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. It was titled the ''Bristol Evening Post'' until April 2012. The website was relaunched as BristolLive in April 2018. It is owned by
Reach PLC, formerly known as Trinity Mirror.
History
The ''Evening Post'' was founded in 1932 by local interests, in response to an agreement between the two national press groups which owned the then two Bristol evening newspapers,
Lord Rothermere
Viscount Rothermere, of Hemsted in the county of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1919 for the press lord Harold Harmsworth, 1st Baron Harmsworth. He had already been created a baronet, of Horsey in th ...
, owner of the ''Bristol Evening World'', and
Baron Camrose, owner of the ''Bristol Times and Echo''. Camrose had agreed to close his Bristol title in return for Rothermere's agreement to close his title in
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
, leaving Bristol with just one paper. Readers of the ''Times and Echo'' were instrumental in founding the ''Evening Post'', which carried the rubric "The paper all Bristol asked for and helped to create".
The ''Evening Post'' and ''Evening World'' competed strongly until 1935, when both titles were acquired by a new company, Bristol United Press (BUP), 40% owned by Lord Rothermere's interests and 60% owned by the ''Bristol Evening Post''. In 1960 BUP acquired the Bristol morning paper, the ''
Western Daily Press
The ''Western Daily Press'' is a regional newspaper covering parts of South West England, mainly Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset as well as the metropolitan areas of Bath and North East Somerset and the Bristol area. It is published Mond ...
'', and the weekly ''
Bristol Observer''. In 1962 the ''Evening World'' ceased publication, leaving the ''Evening Post'' as Bristol's only evening paper. At that time the paper had a circulation of 160,000.
By 1990
David Sullivan, owner of the ''
Sunday Sport
The ''Sunday Sport'' is a British tabloid newspaper that was founded by David Sullivan in 1986. It mainly publishes images of topless female glamour models, and is well known for publishing sensationalized, fictionalized, and satirical conten ...
'', had acquired an interest in the title, and unsuccessfully sought to acquire more shares.
[ In 1998 Rothermere's Northcliffe Newspaper Group acquired the shares of the independent shareholders in BUP, making the title wholly owned by the ]Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media company, the owner of the '' Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chairman and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office i ...
. In 2006 Northcliffe made 36 staff redundant, and unsuccessfully sought a purchaser for the ''Bristol Evening Post'' and ''Western Daily Press''.
In May 2009 it was announced that the ''Post'', and sister paper the ''Western Daily Press'', would no longer be printed in Bristol, but at Northcliffe's central printing unit at Didcot
Didcot ( ) is a railway town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Oxfordshire and the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire. Didcot is south of Oxford, eas ...
in Oxfordshire. In January 2011 the press hall at its Temple Way headquarters was demolished.
In April 2012 the paper was renamed ''The Post'' (reflecting the fact that it has not been printed in the evening for some time) and in May 2012 the Saturday edition was scrapped, with the loss of 20 jobs.
An enhanced Friday edition was subsequently launched, including a magazine, ''The Weekend''.
In 2012, Local World
Local World Holdings Ltd. was a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK that published around 100 print titles and more than 70 websites. It was formed in 2012 by David Montgomery, a former chief executive of Trinity Mirror, to buy the Dai ...
acquired Northcliffe Media from Daily Mail and General Trust
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) is a British multinational media company, the owner of the '' Daily Mail'' and several other titles. The 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chairman and controlling shareholder of the company. The head office i ...
.
In October 2015 Trinity Mirror acquired the ''Bristol Post'' as part of its takeover of Local World
Local World Holdings Ltd. was a large regional newspaper publisher in the UK that published around 100 print titles and more than 70 websites. It was formed in 2012 by David Montgomery, a former chief executive of Trinity Mirror, to buy the Dai ...
titles.
In March 2018 its editor Mike Norton apologised on the paper's front page for a headline, 'Faces of evil', on the Wednesday 17 April 1996 front page showing 16 photos of black men jailed for dealing crack cocaine, which had led to a large proportion of the city boycotting the paper for many years. Norton wrote:
..the problem was one of context.
The ''Evening Post'' – as it was called then – was already disconnected from the city's black communities. It was another Bristol institution that the people in those communities didn't feel was for them. They were already wary of telling the Post about their news or their successes. They already had a suspicion that the paper wrote about black people only when they committed crime.
The Faces of Evil front page, with its black faces ranged in rows like slaves held in cages, cemented that view.
References
External links
* (BristolLive)
''Bristol Evening Post'' Watch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bristol Post, The
Northcliffe Media
Newspapers published in Bristol
Publications established in 1932
1932 establishments in England
Companies based in Bristol
Daily newspapers published in the United Kingdom