The Cincinnati Post from Cincinnati, Ohio • 7

ThePoit Monday December 3t 2007 7A Farewell Edition Saying goodbye to Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky after 126 years i i I I 9 9 0 I 4 ft ft i ft Post file photos Editors cluster around the hub at The Post Square city room in 1910 as a copy boy waits patiently in the back to be beckoned A Sense of Mission to Brag About By Dan Harley Post contributor If you want a point of contrast with the sadness and resignation that marks the publication of the last edition of The Post today take a look at Cincinnati Post 3a editors Mb Phipps 2001-2007 Pftri tab 1983-2001 Mbs ft tartsigh 1977-1983 i 'WsRaFiMaftsif 1969-1977-V Dttltershai 1953-1969 Cal Gmt 1933-1953 FiaWBsck 1929-1933 EkMrPFriN 1921-1929 FiMWosbekl915-1921 VMsr Maps 1914-1915 KsnyftnMM 1906-1914 W- Mft Vaahmsk 1905-1906 if: ChailM FHssiMr 1895-1905 LTjfcmri 1889-1895 MosLBdur 1886-1889 Mb ILHiaar 1883-1886 Mat I Hass 1881-1883 1881 The Post offices from 1883 to 1958 were at Post Square where the current Duke Energy Center is located Kentucky Post Editors City that Found This pamphlet published by The Post in 1930 targeted potential advertisers and hyped the growth (circulation up over 40000 in a decade) and market penetration (80 percent of Covington homes) But what distinguished it from typical sales bravado was that the editors bragged about the sense of mission Six years earlier in 1924 the pamphlet proudly reminded readers that Cincinnati had from its chest the band of wily politicians that had held the staid conservative metropolis pinned to the and that The Cincinnati Post was the role leader in governmental Quite simply Post sold Cincinnati on itself" That sense of mission was embedded in the very origins Because Cincinnati already had seven English and five German language daily newspapers in 1881- the Penny Press The predecessor sought a distinctive niche and voice Modeled on the successful penny papers created earlier by the Scripps family in Detroit Cleveland and St Louis the Penny Press which first appeared on Jan 3 1881 set out to serve the growing industrial classes who preferred an inexpensive newspaper that concentrated on local news and hit the streets in the afternoon as factories changed shifts Under the direction of Edward Willis Scripps who took frill control in July 1883 the paper committed itself to openly fighting against the corrupt political machines that controlled the city In the mid-1880s Post reporters used The Evening Post to throw a light on Tom Campbell the corrupt Democratic boss who controlled local government In March 1884 when Campbell tampered with a jury to get a confessed murderer off with manslaughter Cincinnati exploded Mobs of more than 10000 filled the streets stormed the jail and burned the courthouse to the ground Even in the midst of this chaos The Post did not waver not blame the people Their pa- 12001-2007 1995-2001 1983-1995 1979-1983 TriaWt 1963-1979 JLSaarias 1936-1962 Wtsnr 1931-1936 1921-1931 Cask 1919-1921 Mb 1918-1919 tartans 1918 ChsrimWLanh 1916-1918 Grippan 1915 Lhanr 1906-1915 ban 1904-1906 11891- Pari Ham JaRhCbtes Puritans tarn Cal DeuM BmeeLSasoag at ft EriaariP NbatW Frank Mbs tanyW labeled the proposal and demanded his firing The Post supported right to speak and the merits of the proposal The history of newspapers like most organizations tends to be written with a focus on the dramatic moments like The Post's leadership in rallying Cincinnatians after World War I to overthrow Boss Rudolph Hynica and adopt a modern charter But what historians tend to forget is that to be ready to contribute in critical moments a newspaper must do the hard work of accumulating the reservoir of contacts and that comes from documenting the daily of a community year after year Though not as dramatic and certainly not fully in 2007 The steady focus on Northern Kentucky over the tience has been tried beyond endurance Blame the corrupt Of course standing with the growing working class had financial rewards In the midst of the 1884 riots John Griffiths a 13-year-old newsboy made $26 in a single day selling the papers at a penny apiece and by 1890 The Post claimed the largest circulation in the city In 1886 The Post stood with the Knights of Labor including 32000 local in a national strike that shut factories across the country In 1906 when the president of the University of Cincinnati Charles Dabney spoke in favor of city and of public utilities the Taft-owned Times-Star and other papers A hot-typo composer for The when the newspaper owned 1904 past 25 years is just as important From the early 1880s The Post consciously reached out to cover Northern Kentucky and in 1897 established The Kentucky Post As the overall circulation base withered north of the river in the last 30 years under the strictures of the joint operating agreement the paper became increasingly focused on Northern Kentucky That narrowing of geographic focus coincided with the emergence of Northern Kentucky as the most vital part of the metropolitan region Economically the area around the international airport became the leading-edge district along the highway" Efforts like Forward Quest and Vision 2015 in Northern Kentucky have established a model for governmental collaboration that Hamilton County is now trying to copy with Agenda 360 Fifty years from now historians will use the microfilmed pages of The Kentucky Post to better understand the origins of the 21st century region When The Post was founded 126 years ago the character of newspapers was undergoing a fundamental change The major dailies were dominated by editors like Murat Halstead at the Cincinnati Commercial and John McLean at the Enquirer These men practiced a sort of personal journalism that did not distinguish between news and opinion As was the case with dozens of other professions journalism professionalized itself after 1880 developing a code of ethics and standards As The Post closes its doors and other newspapers find themselves in deepening financial trouble the rise of the blogosphere is held up as the democratization of access But no set of journalistic standards and ethics and no system of editorial checks exist on the Web We have entered a new day with new opportunities and new dangers but uncoupled from a system that served us well for over a century Dan Harley is assistant rice president for history and research at the Cincinnati Museum Center He also tercet as the itaff historian for Channel 12 News and is exec-utire producer of Local 12 Newsmakers Reach him at Post kept busy at deadlines its own printing press I.