What is the New York Post?
The New York Post is an American conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. It is one of the oldest newspapers in the US, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801 as the New-York Evening Post. The Post also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
The Post is known for its sensational headlines, provocative opinions, and conservative slant. It covers topics such as politics, sports, business, entertainment, crime, and lifestyle. It has a circulation of about 230,000 print copies and 75 million online visitors per month.
Who owns the New York Post?
The New York Post is owned by News Corp, a global media conglomerate founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1980. News Corp also owns other media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, Fox News, and HarperCollins Publishers.
Murdoch bought the Post in 1976 for $30.5 million, after it had gone through several owners and financial troubles. He transformed it into a tabloid with a populist and conservative tone, hiring editors and writers such as Pete Hamill, Steve Dunleavy, and Cindy Adams. Murdoch sold the Post in 1988 to comply with federal regulations that prohibited owning both a newspaper and a television station in the same market. He reacquired it in 1993 for $36.5 million.
What are some of the controversies involving the New York Post?
The New York Post has been involved in many controversies over the years, both for its editorial stance and its journalistic practices. Some of the most notable ones are:
- In 2004, the Post endorsed George W. Bush for president and ran a front-page headline that read “BUSH WINS!” before the official results were announced. The headline was based on faulty exit polls that showed Bush leading John Kerry in several key states. The Post later retracted the headline and apologized for the error.
- In 2009, the Post published a cartoon that depicted two police officers shooting a chimpanzee, with one saying “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The cartoon was widely criticized as racist and insensitive, as it appeared to compare then-President Barack Obama, who had signed the stimulus bill into law, to a monkey. The Post defended the cartoon as a parody of a recent incident where a pet chimpanzee attacked its owner and was killed by police. The Post later issued a statement that said “It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period.”
- In 2012, the Post published a photo of a man named Ki-Suck Han moments before he was fatally struck by a subway train, with the headline “DOOMED”. The photo was taken by a freelance photographer who claimed he was trying to alert the train driver with his camera flash. The photo sparked outrage and debate over whether the photographer or anyone else could have done more to save Han’s life. The Post defended the photo as “a dramatic image that captured the horror of what happened” and said it was not their responsibility to judge what people should have done in such a situation.
- In 2020, the Post published a series of articles that alleged that Hunter Biden, the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had engaged in corrupt business dealings in Ukraine and China based on emails and photos obtained from a laptop that allegedly belonged to him.
- The articles were widely disputed by other media outlets and intelligence officials, who said they could not verify the authenticity or origin of the laptop or its contents. The articles were also blocked or restricted by social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, who cited their policies against spreading misinformation or hacked materials. The Post accused the platforms of censorship and bias against conservatives.
