New York Post

The New York Post is one of the oldest (and according to some definitions, the oldest) newspapers still published in the United States. It was founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801— as the New-York Evening Post, a broadsheet quite unlike today's tabloid. Early editorial work was done in the country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion. Hamilton chose for his first editor William Coleman, but the more famous 19th-century Evening Post editor was William Cullen Bryant, a strong Abolitionist. 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 Coloured People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1933 the Post changed to tabloid format.Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper in 1939; her editor Ted Thackrey turned it into a streamlined tabloid format, then in 1977 was bought by Rupert Murdoch.

The Murdoch years

Australian born Rupert Murdoch was forced to sell the paper due to the institution of federal regulations limiting foreign media ownership. The Post then ran through a series of unsteady owners: Peter S. Kalikow, a real estate magnate who went bankrupt; Steven Hoffenberg, a financier who pleaded guilty to securities fraud; and, for two weeks in March 1993, Abe Hirschfeld, a true eccentric who made his fortune building parking garages. The Post was repurchased in 1988 by Murdoch's News Corporation, after his receiving American citizenship (in 1985) ended any restriction upon his ownership of U.S. media. Under his direction, the paper has taken a consistently conservative, populist editorial viewpoint since being re-acquired from Hirschfeld by Murdoch after its near-insolvency in 1993.

Related Topics:
Rupert Murdoch - Real estate - Bankrupt - Fraud - March - 1993 - Abe Hirschfeld - 1988 - News Corporation - 1985 - Conservative - Populist

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