Jan 01 2008
Post Papers Close
It has become an all-too-familiar headline: Newspaper shutters as Internet continues killing business. This time it’s the Post family of newspapers in Kentucky. From Businessweek:
Originally called The Penny Paper when it was started in 1881, the paper was renamed The Penny Post by E.W. Scripps, who assumed control in 1883. The newspaper became The Cincinnati Post in 1890, when its Kentucky Post edition began.
The Post newsroom was down to about 50 people at the end, and its daily circulation was less than a tenth of the 270,000-plus it enjoyed in 1960, before changing lifestyles, the expansion of television news, and later, the rise of multimedia news and advertising sources, sapped readership. Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio’s two largest cities, lost an afternoon paper each decades ago.
Joint operating agreements under the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 allow newspapers to merge business operations when one is facing financial failure. Gannett, which owns The Cincinnati Enquirer where the Post had been printed for about three decades, notified The Post three years ago it would not renew their agreement when it ended.
I’d be curious to learn more about the Preservation Act. Government protection of newspapers could pose a conflict of interest. It also seems like an antiquated form of protectionism for an industry that should have been stimulated toward evolution.
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