Discover

The '''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''' is the only major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the ''Post-Dispatch'' is one of the largest newspapers in the region, and is available and read as far west as Springfield, Missouri.

Contents

History

21st century

Highlights after 125 years

Suburban Journals

Competition

Editorial tone

Controversy

Further reading

References

External links

History

The newspaper was founded by the 1878 merger of the ''St. Louis Evening Post'' and ''St. Louis Dispatch'' by owner and editor Joseph Pulitzer. The resulting paper was called the '''St. Louis Post and Dispatch''' during its first year of operation; its first edition, 4020 copies of four pages each, appeared on December 12, 1878.
On February 11, 1901, the paper's introduced a front page feature called the "Weatherbird", a cartoon bird accompanying the daily weather forecast.^[2]
On April 10, 1907, Pulitzer wrote what is now referred to as the paper's platform:^[3]
:"I know that my retirement will make no difference in its cardinal principles, that it will always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice or corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."
After his retirement, generations of Pulitzers guided the newspaper. After great-grandson Joseph Pulitzer IV left the company in 1995, his uncle Michael Pulitzer remained chairman of a company to which the ''Post-Dispatch'' became less central.

21st century

On January 31, 2005, Michael Pulitzer announced the sale of Pulitzer, Inc. and all its assets, including the ''Post-Dispatch'' and a small share of the St. Louis Cardinals, to Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, for $1.46 billion. He announced that no family members would serve on the board of the merged company.
The ''Post-Dispatch'' underwent a major redesigning in September 2005. The redesiging brought a new layout, new fonts, and localized editions for St. Charles County and Illinois. Many readers have criticized the new format for devoting a larger percentage of page space to advertisements and relying too much on wire services and dispatches from other newspapers.

Highlights after 125 years

On January 13, 2004, the ''Post-Dispatch'' published a 125th anniversary edition, which included some highlights of the paper's 125th years:

★ The story of Charles Lindbergh, whose flight across the Atlantic was a success despite being denied financial or written support from the ''Post-Dispatch''.

★ A Pulitzer Prize-winning campaign to clean up smoke pollution in St. Louis. For a time in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the city was considered to have the filthiest air in America.

★ The sports coverage, including nine "St. Louis baseball Cardinals" championships, an NBA title by the St. Louis Hawks in 1958, and the 2000 Super Bowl victory of the St. Louis Rams.

★ Coverage of the city's "cultural icons" including Kate Chopin, Tennessee Williams, Chuck Berry and Miles Davis.

Suburban Journals

The Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis are also owned by Lee Enterprises. The Suburban Journals are a free weekly newspaper published in 31 editions which target different communities within Greater St. Louis.^[4] They are distributed every Wednesday to nearly 660,000 households; another 350,000 households receive a Sunday Journal and 64,000 homes in St. Charles County receive a Friday edition.

Competition

For many years, the ''Post-Dispatch's only major competitor was the ''St. Louis Globe-Democrat'', which went out of business in 1986.
In September 1989, Ingersoll Publications, the then-owner of the Suburban Journals, began publishing ''The St. Louis Sun''.^[5]. The paper grew to a circulation estimated to be about 100,000, but after a $30 million loss the paper was closed seven months later.

Editorial tone

While some claim that the paper maintains a moderate editorial tone, others believe that the paper has a definite liberal slant. The ''Post-Dispatch'' generally endorses more Democratic than Republican candidates for office and has taken editorial positions in support of liberal causes such as abortion rights and abolition of capital punishment.

Controversy

In 2005, ''Post-Dispatch'' reporter Carolyn Tuft wrote a series of investigative reports on the finances of televangelist Joyce Meyer. The ''Post-Dispatch'' soon retracted the stories and issued an apology, saying two of the stories were inaccurate. Tuft was suspended for two days, though both she and her colleagues stood by her reporting. Tuft has been defended by the St. Louis Newspaper Guild, which accused the ''Post-Dispatch'' of a "breach of ethics." The Guild charged that the ''Post-Dispatch'' ran the apology and suspended Tuft in order to avoid litigation from Joyce Meyer's ministry. In early, 2007 a federal arbitrator sided with Tuft and ordered the paper's editors to rescind her suspension.

Further reading

★ Jim McWilliams, ''Mark Twain in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1874-1891'' (Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing Company, 1997).

★ Daniel W. Pfaff, ''Joseph Pulitzer II and the Post-Dispatch: A Newspaperman's Life'' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).

★ Julian S. Rammelkamp, ''Pulitzer's Post-Dispatch, 1878-1883'' (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967).

★ Florence Rebekah Beatty Brown, ''The Negro as Portrayed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from 1920-1950'' (c. 1951).

★ Charles G. Ross and Carlos F. Hurd, ''The Story of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' (St. Louis: Pulitzer Publishing, 1944).

★ ''The St. Louis Post-Dispatch as Appraised by Ten Distinguished Americans'' (St. Louis, 1926).

★ Orrick Johns, ''Time of Our Lives: The Story of My Father and Myself'', (New York, 1937). George Sibley Johns, father of the author, was editor of the Post-Dispatch for many years, and was the last of Joseph Pulitzer's "Fighting Editors". The book contains many accounts of the beginning days of newspapers in St. Charles and St. Louis, as well as accounts of George's experiences with Joseph Pulizer and the ''Post-Dispatch''.

References

1. 2007 Top 100 Daily Newspapers in the U.S. by Circulation
2. Meet the Weatherbird from the newspaper's website
3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Platform from the newspaper's website
4. About the Suburban Journals, from the newspaper's website
5. Modeling the problem: ''De novo'' entry into daily newspaper markets, from the Summer/Fall 1997 issue of the ''Newspaper Research Journal''

External links

★ ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' website

★ Lee Enterprises profile of the ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch''