The Cincinnati Post
The Cincinnati Post was an afternoon daily newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. In Northern Kentucky, it was bundled inside a local edition called The Kentucky Post.
The Post was a founding publication and onetime flagship of Scripps-Howard Newspapers, a division of the E. W. Scripps Company. For much of its history, the Post was the most widely read paper in the Cincinnati market. Its readership was concentrated on the West Side of Cincinnati, as well as in Northern Kentucky, where it was considered the newspaper of record.
The Post began publishing in 1881 and launched its Northern Kentucky edition in 1890. It acquired The Cincinnati Times-Star in 1958. The Post ceased publication at the end of 2007, after 30 years in a joint operating agreement with The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Content
The Post was known throughout its history for investigative journalism and focus on local coverage, characteristics common to Scripps papers. As one of the first successful penny presses outside the East Coast, the Post was written primarily for blue collar laborers who had no time to read a newspaper in the morning. Its articles were written to be easily readable. In its heyday, the paper consistently championed good governance and labor rights.Though the Post considered itself politically independent, it historically tended to support progressive politicians relative to the Times-Star and Enquirer. The Post
Schedule
The Post published regular editions on weekday afternoons and a Weekender edition on Saturday mornings. In keeping with Scripps tradition, the Post did not publish on Sundays for most of its history. However, it did publish a Sunday edition from November 30, 1924, to December 18, 1932. The Post published on schedule from its founding as The Penny Paper in 1881 until 1967. From October 30 to November 2, 1967, 300 Newspaper Guild members struck along with Pressmen and Stereotypers, while Printers were locked out.History
Early years
The Cincinnati Post began on January 3, 1881, as The Penny Paper, published from a second floor office at Vine and Longworth streets. The publishers, Walter E. Wellman and his brother Frank, hoped to emulate the success of the Cleveland Penny Press. By March, they ran out of funds and took an investment from James E. Scripps and half-brother Edward Willis Scripps, who ran the Penny Press. They used the funds to purchase a press and move the paper to larger facility on Home Street. In October, Walter Wellman was framed for blackmail in retaliation for exposés of policy racketeers and the police. Wellman fled to Kentucky, where he was unlikely to face extradition, and left the Scripps brothers in charge of operations at "the blackmailing sheet".The Cincinnati Enquirer called The Penny Paper "a fair success" in its first year, estimating the upstart's circulation at about 6,000, fifth in a market served by seven papers in English and five in German. E. W. Scripps estimated daily circulation at 7,000 in the city and 6,000 in the countryside, before countryside distribution was discontinued to save money.
With an editorial staff that leaned Republican and included a former minister, The Penny Paper was seen as "the spokesman and the organ of the religious element of the community", according to Scripps. When in 1882 the "Boy Preacher" Rev. Thomas Harrison held 13 weeks of camp meetings in Cincinnati, "the boy preacher and the little Penny were vying with each other and cooperating with each other in the way of saving souls." The paper's circulation quickly quadrupled.
On February 11, 1883, the paper was given a more distinctive name, The Penny Post, because "Penny Paper" was "more of a description of the paper than a name". In July, the Scripps family assumed full ownership of the company, with E. W. having a controlling interest. It was the first paper that he had ever owned. It became The Evening Post on October 11, 1883 though the price would remain at one penny until 1918. On September 2, 1890, it was finally renamed The Cincinnati Post. On September 15, a Kentucky edition debuted with coverage of Covington, Newport, Bellevue, Dayton, and Ludlow by a dedicated staff in Covington. One year later, Scripps renamed it The Kentucky Post and began distributing it as a full-fledged publication wrapped around the Cincinnati paper at no additional charge. The Kentucky Post soon put its sole rival, The Commonwealth, out of business. By the time the local typographical union debuted its own penny paper, the News, in 1894, the Post had added such thorough coverage of labor relations that the News folded within two months.
In 1894, E. W. Scripps and his half-brother, George H. Scripps, organized their various papers into the first modern newspaper chain. In July 1895, it was named the Scripps-McRae League in recognition of Post general manager Milton A. McRae, a longtime partner. By 1903, the Post boasted of leading all Cincinnati dailies with a sworn daily average circulation of 146,884.
Crusader for reform
From its founding to 1930, the Post crusaded against bossism, aligning with the Democratic Party locally. In 1883, it launched a campaign against Thomas C. Campbell, a notorious jury fixer. Campbell responded by suing the paper for libel in front of a partially fixed jury. Amid threats from the Cox machine, the Post hired bodyguards for its editors and managers. Boss Campbell's regime ended with the courthouse riots of 1884. In 1889, the Post put the Cincinnati Telegram, an afternoon competitor once run by Campbell, out of business by secretly financing its unsuccessful move to morning publication. In 1904 and 1905, the Post directed its fire against Campbell's protégé, George B. Cox, exposing graft and lampooning his affiliates with the help of cartoonist Homer Davenport. The PostIn 1904, at President Theodore Roosevelt's suggestion, the Post became the first newspaper in the country to endorse William Howard Taft for president in 1908. Corporate president Milton A. McRae had long been a supporter of the Cincinnati native, despite the Taft family owning the Times-Star and generally supporting the Cox machine. McRae secured the help of Times-Star editor Charles Phelps Taft in publicizing the editorial. The Post retracted its endorsement just before the 1908 election and by 1910 had resumed its attacks on President Taft and the Republican Party.
The Post
In 1924, the Post was the only Cincinnati daily that endorsed a new municipal charter based on the council–manager system, nonpartisan elections, and proportional representation. The enactment of this charter the following year propelled the Charter Committee to power and led to the demise of political machines in Cincinnati, ultimately dooming the Cincinnati Subway that was seen as a product of bossism. In 1936, the Post backed the nonpartisan movement as it expanded to the Hamilton County government. In 1947, the Post successfully defended the proportional representation system against a campaign by Charles P. Taft to repeal it.
Consolidation
On October 1, 1935, the PostBy the late 1940s, sales of The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati's remaining morning daily, had increased dramatically, fueled in part by the success of its Sunday morning monopoly; meanwhile, the Post and especially The Cincinnati Times-Star faced a declining afternoon market. In 1948 and 1949, lawyers for Scripps-Howard and The Times-Star Company discussed the possibility of jointly publishing a Sunday morning edition called the Times-Post. The two companies determined that they would be safe from Sherman Act investigations, which were rare in the newspaper industry; however, they eventually scrapped the idea for fear that the Enquirer would sue them for any losses. Another factor was the difficulty of establishing a Sunday carrier system.
On April 26, 1956, Scripps-Howard purchased a 36.5% controlling interest in the Enquirer for $4,059,000, beating out The Times-Star Company's $2,380,051 and Tribune Publishing's $15 per share, or $2,238,000. Then, on July 20, 1958, Scripps also acquired the Times-Star, merging the afternoon paper with the Post. Only three Times-Star reporters were retained. The combined paper operated out of the Cincinnati Times-Star Building, noted for its Art Deco architecture. The paper would be published under the name The Cincinnati Post and Times-Star until December 31, 1974, when it reverted to The Cincinnati Post.
Post circulation peaked in 1961. Combined Cincinnati Post and Kentucky Post circulation was 275,000, including nearly 60,000 for the Kentucky edition alone. In 1968, the Post had 50,000 more daily subscriptions than the Enquirer. In the 1960s, the Kentucky Post dominated the newspaper market in 12 Kentucky counties: Bracken, Boone, Campbell, Carroll, Gallatin, Grant, Harrison, Kenton, Mason, Owen, Pendleton, and Robertson.
With the Times-Star and Enquirer acquisitions, the Scripps family owned all of Cincinnati's dailies, along with WCPO-AM, WCPO-FM, and WCPO-TV, which consistently led local television ratings with Al Schottelkotte's news reports. The E. W. Scripps Company operated the Enquirer at arm's length, even omitting the Scripps lighthouse logo from the Enquirer