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 [Paper] 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.
Crusader for reform attacking Boss Cox. 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. In 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's role in a 1905 Democratic mayoral victory led some advertisers to boycott the paper for up to a decade, and its valuation fell by half. The paper habitually refused advertisements attacking labor unions, such as those by
Postum Cereals in 1905. In 1914, the
Post weathered a severe drop in advertising after it exposed a scheme to extend the franchises of the local utilities and sided with striking
streetcar workers. Still, disappointed that the
Post's advertising business always pressured the paper to moderate its investigative reporting, E. W. Scripps founded the Chicago
Day Book in 1911 as an experimental daily paper entirely devoid of advertising. The
Day Book folded in 1917. 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
Posts corporate parent, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, entered the radio business by purchasing AM station WFBE 1230. The callsign was changed to WCPO, for "The Voice of the Cincinnati Po'st", and the station switched to a
news radio format. Initially, the station's main studios were located in
David Sinton's hotel, while news bulletins originated from a broom closet adjacent to the
Post city room.
WCPO-TV signed on the air on July 26, 1949. By 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.
American Financial, the
Enquirer's corporate parent, purchased the building in 1975. 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. 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's nameplate. Nevertheless, the
United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the company in 1964. In 1968, Scripps entered into a
consent decree to sell the
Enquirer. It was sold to
Carl Lindner, Jr.'s
American Financial Corporation on February 20, 1971.
Joint operating agreement On September 22, 1977, the
Post signed a joint operating agreement (JOA) with
The Cincinnati Enquirer. For two years, the
Post had secretly negotiated the terms of the JOA with the
Enquirer while securing concessions from labor unions. The two papers petitioned the Justice Department for an antitrust exemption under the
Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. This was the second JOA application under the Newspaper Preservation Act; the first, involving the
Anchorage Daily News and
Anchorage Times, was summarily approved but already seen as a failure. Scripps-Howard rejected an informal offer by
Larry Flynt to help fund a takeover of the
Post by its employees instead of signing the JOA. taking effect after negotiations and legal battles with unions, including with 131
Post printers who had been guaranteed jobs for life. The
Post forwent Sunday publishing, a major advantage the
Enquirer had over the
Post. The
Post eliminated 500 of 600 jobs as a result of the agreement.
Decline and closure In a pattern seen throughout the industry, the
Post declined severely during the 30-year term of the JOA, particularly during the 1980s. In 1977, when the agreement was announced, the
Post had a daily circulation of 195,000, In January 2004, the
Enquirer informed the
Post of its intention to let the JOA expire on December 31, 2007. That spring, the
Post ended distribution in the northern suburbs in
Butler and
Warren counties to concentrate on
Hamilton County and its Northern Kentucky edition. Also that year, political cartoonist Jeff Stahler left the
Post for
The Columbus Dispatch. In June 2005, the
Post closed its Kentucky newsroom and announced early retirement offers to employees in advance of its probable closure. These changes resulted in profits of $23.5 million in 2005 and $20.7 million the following year. On July 17, parent company E. W. Scripps confirmed that both
The Cincinnati Post and
The Kentucky Post would cease publication on the day of the JOA's expiration. The
Post published its final print edition on December 31, 2007. About 30
Enquirer employees assigned to
Post operations lost their jobs. At a farewell party in the
Post newsroom, a band played for the first time the "Cincinnati Post March", WCPO-TV replaced the
Post as sponsor of the local qualification rounds of the
Scripps National Spelling Bee. The
Post came to an end due to a number of factors, including the end of the joint operating agreement, a 75% decrease in readership, and decreasing advertising revenues. By the paper's closing, its circulation had fallen to about 25,000 on weekdays and 34,000 on Saturdays, versus the
Enquirer's 195,000 on weekdays and Saturdays and 280,000 on Sundays. However, some
Post employees faulted the
Enquirer for neglecting its partner, citing empty or outdated newsboxes By 2025, a non-profit group called the Child Advocacy for Rights & Equity claimed to have resurrected the paper. ==Online presence==