New York Post
The New York Post (NY Post) is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The "Post" also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established in 1801 by Federalist and Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, and became a respected broadsheet in the 19th century under the name New York Evening Post. Its most famous 19th-century editor was William Cullen Bryant. In the mid-20th century, the paper was owned by Dorothy Schiff, a devoted liberal, who developed its tabloid format. In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought the "Post" for  US$30.5 million. Since 1993, the "Post" has been owned by Murdoch's News Corp. Its distribution ranked 4th in the US in 2019. History. 19th century. The "Post" was founded by Alexander Hamilton with about US$10,000 () from a group of investors in the autumn of 1801 as the "New-York Evening Post", a broadsheet. Hamilton's co-investors included other New York members of the Federalist Party, such as Robert Troup and Oliver Wolcott, who were dismayed by the election of Thomas Jefferson as U.S. president and the rise in popularity of the Democratic-Republican Party. The meeting  at which Hamilton first recruited investors for the new paper took place in Archibald Gracie's then-country weekend villa that is now Gracie Mansion. Hamilton chose William Coleman as his first editor. The most famous 19th-century "Evening Post" editor was the poet and abolitionist William Cullen Bryant. So well respected was the "Evening Post" under Bryant's editorship, it received praise from the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in 1864. In the summer of 1829, Bryant invited William Leggett, the Locofoco Democrat, to write for the paper. There, in addition to literary and drama reviews, Leggett began to  write political editorials. Leggett's espoused a fierce opposition to central banking and support for the organization of labor unions. He was a member of the Equal Rights Party. Leggett became a co-owner and editor at the "Post" in 1831, eventually working as sole editor of the newspaper while Bryant traveled in Europe in 1834 through 1835. Another co-owner of the paper was John Bigelow. Born in Malden-on-Hudson, New York, John Bigelow, Sr. graduated in 1835 from Union College, where he was a member of the Sigma Phi Society and the Philomathean Society, and was admitted  to the bar in 1838. From 1849 to 1861, he was one of the editors and co-owners of the "Evening Post". In 1881, Henry Villard took control of the "Evening Post", as well as "The Nation", which became the "Post"s weekly edition. With this acquisition, the paper was managed by the triumvirate of Carl Schurz, Horace White, and Edwin L. Godkin. When Schurz left the paper in 1883, Godkin became editor-in-chief. White became editor-in-chief in 1899, and remained in that role until his retirement in 1903. In 1897, both publications passed to the management of  Villard's son, Oswald Garrison Villard, a founding member of both the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union. 1918 to 1976. Villard sold the paper in 1918, after widespread allegations of pro-German sympathies during World War I hurt its circulation. The new owner was Thomas Lamont, a senior partner in the Wall Street firm of J.P. Morgan & Co. Unable to stem the paper's financial losses, he sold it to a consortium of 34 financial and reform political leaders, headed by Edwin Francis Gay, dean of the Harvard Business School, whose  members included Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conservative Cyrus H. K. Curtis, publisher of the "Ladies Home Journal", purchased the "Evening Post" in 1924 and briefly turned it into a non-sensational tabloid in 1933. In 1928, Wilella Waldorf became drama editor at the "Evening Post". She was one of the first women to hold an editorial role at the newspaper, During her time at the "Evening Post", she was the only female first-string critic on a New York newspaper. She was proceeded by Clara Savage Littledale, the first woman reporter ever hired by the "Post" and the editor of the  woman's page in 1914. In 1934, J. David Stern purchased the paper, changed its name to the "New York Post", and restored its broadsheet size and liberal perspective. In 1939, Dorothy Schiff purchased the paper. Her husband George Backer was named editor and publisher. Her second editor and third husband Ted Thackrey became co-publisher and co-editor with Schiff in 1942. Together, they recast the newspaper into its modern-day tabloid format. In 1948, "The Bronx Home News" merged with it. In 1949, James Wechsler became editor of the paper, running both the news and the editorial pages . In 1961, he turned over the news section to Paul Sann and stayed on as editorial page editor until 1980. Under Schiff's tenure the "Post" was devoted to liberalism, supporting trade unions and social welfare, and featured some of the most popular columnists of the time, such as Joseph Cookman, Drew Pearson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Max Lerner, Murray Kempton, Pete Hamill, and Eric Sevareid, in addition to theatre critic Richard Watts Jr. and gossip columnist Earl Wilson. 1976 to present. In November 1976, it was announced that Australian Rupert Murdoch had bought the "Post" from Schiff with the intention she  would remain as a consultant for five years. It later emerged that Murdoch bought the newspaper for US$30.5 million. The "Post" at this point was the only surviving afternoon daily in New York City and its circulation under Schiff had grown by two-thirds, particularly after the failure of the competing "World Journal Tribune"; however, the rising cost of operating an afternoon daily in a city with worsening daytime traffic congestion, combined with mounting competition from expanded local radio and TV news cut into the "Post"s profitability, though it made money from 1949 until Schiff's final year of  ownership, when it lost $500,000. The paper has lost money ever since. In late October 1995, the "Post" announced plans to change its Monday through Saturday publication schedule and begin issuing a Sunday edition, which it last published briefly in 1989. On April 14, 1996, the "Post" delivered its new Sunday edition at the cost of 50 cents per paper by keeping its size to 120 pages. The amount, significantly less than Sunday editions from "The New York Daily News" and "The New York Times", was part of "Post"s efforts "to find a niche in the nation's most  competitive newspaper market". Because of the institution of federal regulations limiting media cross-ownership after Murdoch's purchase of WNEW-TV (now WNYW) and four other stations from Metromedia to launch the Fox Broadcasting Company, Murdoch was forced to sell the paper for $37.6 million in 1988 to Peter S. Kalikow, a real-estate magnate with no news experience. In 1988, the "Post" hired Jane Amsterdam, founding editor of "Manhattan, inc.", as its first female editor, and within six months the paper had toned down the sensationalist headlines. Within a year, Amsterdam was forced out by Kalikow, who reportedly  told her "credible doesn't sell ... Your big scoops are great, but they don't sell more papers." When Kalikow declared bankruptcy in 1993, the paper was temporarily managed by Steven Hoffenberg, a financier who later pleaded guilty to securities fraud, and for two weeks by Abe Hirschfeld, who made his fortune building parking garages. After a staff revolt against the Hoffenberg-Hirschfeld partnership, which included publication of an issue whose front page featured the iconic masthead picture of founder Alexander Hamilton with a single teardrop running down his cheek, the "Post" was again purchased in 1993 by Murdoch's  News Corporation. This came about after numerous political officials, including Democratic governor of New York Mario Cuomo, persuaded the Federal Communications Commission to grant Murdoch a permanent waiver from the cross-ownership rules that had forced him to sell the paper five years earlier. Without that FCC ruling, the paper would have shut down. In December 2012, Murdoch announced that Jesse Angelo had been appointed publisher. Various branches of Murdoch's media groups, 21st Century Fox's Endemol Shine North America and News Corp' New York Post created a "Page Six TV" nightly gossip show based and named after the  Post's gossip section. A test run in July would occur on Fox Television Stations. The show garnered the highest ratings of a nationally syndicated entertainment newsmagazine in a decade when it debuted in 2017. With "Page Six TV"s success, the "New York Post" formed New York Post Entertainment, a scripted and unscripted television entertainment division, in July 2018 with Troy Searer as president. In 2017, the "New York Post" was reported to be the preferred newspaper of U.S. president Donald Trump, who maintains frequent contact with its owner Murdoch. The "Post" had promoted Trump's celebrity since at least  the 1980s. In October 2020, the "Post" endorsed Trump for re-election, citing his "promises made, promises kept" policy. Weeks after Trump was defeated and he sought to overturn the election results, the "Post" published a front-page editorial asking the president to "stop the insanity", stating that he was "cheering for an undemocratic coup", commenting: "If you insist on spending your final days in office threatening to burn it all down, that will be how you are remembered. Not as a revolutionary, but as the anarchist holding the match." The "Post" characterized Trump attorney Sidney Powell as a "crazy  person", and his former national security advisor Michael Flynn’s suggestion to declare martial law as "tantamount to treason." Around March 2021, Keith Poole, a top editor at "The Sun", another Murdoch-owned tabloid, was appointed as the editor in chief at the "New York Post". Around the same time, at least eight journalists had left the paper. Content, coverage, and controversies. The "Post" has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for sensationalism, blatant advocacy, and conservatism bias. In 1980, the "Columbia Journalism Review" stated that the ""New York Post" is no longer merely a journalistic problem . It is a social problem—a force for evil." The "Post" has been accused of contorting its news coverage to suit Murdoch's business needs, in particular avoiding subjects which could be unflattering to the government of the People's Republic of China, where Murdoch has invested heavily in satellite television. In a 2019 article in "The New Yorker", Ken Auletta wrote that Murdoch "doesn't hesitate to use the "Post" to belittle his business opponents", and went on to say that Murdoch's support for Edward I. Koch while he was running for mayor of New York "spilled over  onto the news pages of the "Post", with the paper regularly publishing glowing stories about Koch and sometimes savage accounts of his four primary opponents." According to "The New York Times", Ronald Reagan's campaign team credited Murdoch and the Post for his victory in New York in the 1980 United States presidential election. Reagan later "waived a prohibition against owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market", allowing Murdoch to continue to control the "New York Post" and "The Boston Herald" while expanding into television. In 1997, "Post" executive editor Steven D. Cuozzo responded to criticism  by saying that the "Post" "broke the elitist media stranglehold on the national agenda." In a 2004 survey conducted by Pace University, the "Post" was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible). The "Post" commonly publishes news reports based entirely on reporting from other sources without independent corroboration. In January 2021, the paper forbade the use of CNN, MSNBC, "The Washington Post", and "The New York Times" as sole sources for such stories. Style. Murdoch imported  the tabloid journalism style of many of his Australian and British newspapers, such as "The Sun", which remains one of the highest selling daily newspapers in the United Kingdom. This style was typified by the "Post"s famous headlines such as "Headless body in topless bar" (written by Vincent Musetto). In its 35th-anniversary edition, "New York" magazine listed this as one of the greatest headlines. It also has five other "Post" headlines in its "Greatest Tabloid Headlines" list. The "Post" has also been criticized for incendiary front-page headlines, such as one referring to the co-chairmen of the Iraq  Study Group—James Baker and Lee Hamilton—as "surrender monkeys", and another on the murder of Hasidic landlord Menachem Stark reading "Slumlord found burned in dumpster. Who didn’t want him dead?" Page Six. The gossip section "Page Six" was created by James Brady and is currently edited by Emily Smith Columnist Richard Johnson edited Page Six for 25 years. February 2006 saw the debut of "Page Six Magazine", distributed free inside the paper. In September 2007, it started to be distributed weekly in the Sunday edition of the paper. In January 2009, publication of "Page Six Magazine" was cut  to four times a year. Beginning with the 2017–18 television season, a daily syndicated series known as Page Six TV came to air, produced by 20th Television, which was part of the 21st Century Fox side of Rupert Murdoch's holdings, and Endemol Shine North America. The show was originally hosted by comedian John Fugelsang, with contributions from "Page Six" and "Post" writers (including Carlos Greer), along with regular panelists Elizabeth Wagmeister from "Variety" and Bevy Smith. In March 2018, Fugelsang left the show, with the expectation that a new host would be named, though by the end of the  season, it was announced that Wagmeister, Greer and Smith would be retained as equal co-hosts. In April 2019, it was confirmed that the series would end after May 2019; by then, it was last in average viewership out of all U.S. syndicated newsmagazine programs, behind the similar tabloid-inspired program "Daily Mail TV". Erroneous reporting and defamation cases arising from bombings. Richard Jewell, a security guard wrongly suspected of being the Centennial Olympic Park bomber, sued the "Post" in 1998, alleging that the newspaper had libeled him in several articles, headlines, photographs, and editorial cartoons. U.S. District Judge Loretta  Preska largely denied the "Post"s motion to dismiss, allowing the suit to proceed. The "Post" subsequently settled the case for an undisclosed sum. In several stories on the day of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the "Post" inaccurately reported that twelve people had died, and that a Saudi national had been taken into custody as a suspect, which was denied by Boston Police. Three days later, on April 18, the "Post" featured a full-page cover photo of two young men at the Boston marathon with the headline "Bag Men" (a term that implies criminality) and erroneously claimed they were  being sought by police. The men, Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, were not considered suspects, and the "Post" was heavily criticized for the apparent accusation. Then-editor Col Allan defended the story, saying they had not referred to the men as "suspects". The two men later sued the "Post" for libel, and the suit was settled in 2014 on undisclosed terms. Accusations of racism. In 1989, the "Post" described the five black and Latino teenagers arrested following the rape and assault of a white woman in Central Park as coming "from a world of crack, welfare, guns, knives, indifference, and  ignorance [...] a land of no fathers", and having set out "to smash, hurt, rob, stomp, rape" people who were "rich" and "white". The teenagers’ convictions were later overturned after the confession of a serial rapist, which was confirmed with DNA evidence. In 2006, several Asian-American advocacy groups protested the use of the headline "Wok This Way" for a "Post" article about U.S. president George W. Bush's meeting with Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of China. In 2009, the "Post" ran a cartoon by Sean Delonas of a white police officer saying to another white police  officer who has just shot a chimpanzee on the street: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The cartoon dually referred to U.S. president Obama and to the recent rampage of Travis, a former chimpanzee actor. It was criticized as racist, with civil rights activist Al Sharpton calling the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys." The "Post" defended itself by stating that the cartoon was deliberately misinterpreted by its critics. The Public Enemy song "A Letter to the "New York Post"" from their  album "Apocalypse '91...The Enemy Strikes Black" is a complaint about what they believed to be negative and inaccurate coverage blacks received from the paper. In 2019, the "Post" displayed an image of the World Trade Center in flames targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. A quote by Representative Omar was included. The Yemeni American Merchant Association announced a formal boycott of the paper and ten of the most prominent Yemeni bodega owners in New York agreed to stop selling the paper. As of June 2019, the boycott had extended to  over 900 individual stores. Yemeni-Americans own about half of the 10,000 bodegas in New York City. In 2020, the "Post" published an article with the headline "Suspected teen gunman Kyle Rittenhouse spotted cleaning Kenosha graffiti before shooting". In response, actress Viola Davis posted a photo on Instagram comparing the headline with the "Post"'s 2012 headline about Trayvon Martin, which read: "Trayvon Martin had traces of marijuana in system at time of death, autopsy reveals." The caption stated: "We need to boycott publications that continue to criminalize innocent [people of color] after they have been murdered by the law !!!" Hunter Biden laptop story. On October 14, 2020, three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the "Post" published a front-page story purporting to reveal "smoking gun" emails recovered from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden at a computer repair store in Wilmington, Delaware. The only sources named in the story were Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and strategy advisor Steve Bannon. The story came under heavy criticism from other news sources and anonymous reporters at the "Post" itself for "flimsy" reporting, including questions about the reliability of its sourcing and the lack of outreach to either Hunter  Biden or the Joe Biden campaign for pre-publication comment. More than fifty former U.S. intelligence officials signed an open letter stating that they were "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role" in the story, but emphasized that "we do not know if the emails... are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement." The Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe asserted during a Fox News interview that "the intelligence community doesn’t believe that [the emails originated from Russian disinformation] because there is no intelligence that supports that." Ratcliffe, a Trump  loyalist, had previously made public assertions that contradicted professional intelligence assessments. The FBI took possession of the laptop in late 2019 and reported that they had "nothing to add" to Ratcliffe's remarks concerning Russian disinformation. "The New York Times" reported days after the "Post" story that "no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation." Amid mounting pressure, the FBI wrote to Senator Ron Johnson and suggested it had not found any Russian disinformation on the laptop. It was unclear what the Justice Department officials knew about the FBI investigation at the time. Fox News reported that  the laptop was seized as part of an investigation into money laundering, but did not make clear if the investigation involved Hunter Biden. "The New York Times" reported in December 2020 that investigators had initially examined possible money laundering by Hunter Biden but did not find evidence to justify further investigation. As of 2022, "Vox" reported that no evidence had emerged "that the laptop's leak was a Russian plot." In March 2022, "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" confirmed that some of the emails were authentic. Also in March, after the publishing of the "Times" article, the  Murdoch-owned "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board criticized the media for ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story, saying "The media excuse that it ignored the laptop because of "uncertainty about its provenance" is hogwash. We all know that if a similar story had emerged about the Trump family, even with no credible source, the mainstream media would have run it nonstop." After the 2016 election, social media companies were criticized for allowing false political information to proliferate on their platforms, including from Russian intelligence, suggesting it may have assisted Trump's election. Twitter and Facebook initially limited the spread  of the "Post" story on their platforms, citing supposed policies restricting the sharing of hacked material and personal information; Twitter also temporarily suspended the "Post"'s account. this decision proved controversial, with many critics, including Republican senator Ted Cruz, deriding it as censorship. NPR reported that Twitter initially declined to comment how it reached this decision or what evidence it had supporting this. "The New York Times" initially reported that the story had been pitched to other outlets, including Fox News, which declined to publish it due to concerns over its reliability. The "Times" also reported that two writers at  the "Post" declined to have their names attached to the story, and ultimately the story only listed two bylines: Gabrielle Fonrouge, who "had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article" and was unaware of her byline prior to the story's publication, and Emma-Jo Morris, a former producer for Fox News's "Hannity" who had no prior bylines with the "Post". In response to the concerns about the veracity of the article, former "Post" editor-in-chief and current advisor Colin Allan responded in an email to the "Times" that “the senior editors at "The  Post" made the decision to publish the Biden files after several days’ hard work established its merit." Giuliani said he gave the story to the "Post" because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out." NBC News reported on November 1 that "no evidence has emerged that the documents are the product of Russian disinformation, as some experts initially suggested, but many questions remain about how the materials got into the hands of Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who  has met with Russian agents in his effort to dig up dirt on Biden." CNN reported that Giuliani and other Trump allies met with Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, whom the U.S. government later assessed was a longtime Russian intelligence agent, sanctioning him for distributing disinformation about Joe Biden. Earlier in September 2020, the "New York Post" itself reported that Derkach was a "pro-Russian member of Kiev's parliament" and stated "Derkach also met with former New York Mayor Giuliani in Kiev in December last year to dig up dirt on Biden." Other controversies. In 1997, a national news story  concerning Rebecca Sealfon's victory in the Scripps National Spelling Bee circulated. Sealfon was sponsored by the "Daily News", a direct in-market competitor. The "Post" published a picture of her but altered the photograph to remove the name of the "Daily News" as printed on a placard she was wearing. In 2004, the "Post" ran a full-page cover photo of 19-year-old New York University student Diana Chien jumping to her death from the twenty-fourth story of a building. In 2012, the "Post" was criticized for running a photograph of a man struggling to climb back  up onto a subway platform as a train approached, along with the headline "DOOMED." Facing questions over why he didn't help the man, the photographer claimed he was not strong enough and had been attempting to use the flash on his camera to alert the driver of the oncoming train. In December 2020, the "Post" published a story outing an emergency medical technician who made additional income from posting explicit photographs of herself to the subscription website OnlyFans. The publication was widely criticized on social media as "doxxing someone simply for trying to earn a living." In April 2021 , Facebook blocked users from sharing a "Post" story about Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors using millions of dollars to buy several homes, saying that it violated its privacy and personal information policy. In response, the "Post" argued that it was an arbitrary decision since other newspapers, magazines and websites highlight the real estate purchases of high status individuals. News Media Alliance CEO David Chavern also voiced criticism of the decision, saying in a prepared statement: "There is no balance of power between ‘media’ and 'Big Tech. In April 2021, the "Post" published a false front-page story asserting  that copies of a book by vice president Kamala Harris were being distributed to migrant children at an intake facility in Long Beach, California. Fox News then published a story about the matter, followed by numerous Republican politicians and pundits commenting on it, in some cases speculating that taxpayers were funding the supposed book handouts for Harris's personal profit. Responding to questions from Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, White House press secretary Jen Psaki expressed no knowledge of the matter; the "Post" then published a new story headlined "Psaki has no answers when asked about Harris' book being given  to child migrants." Four days after the original publication, the "Post" replaced the story with a new version clarifying that just one Harris book had been donated by a community member but maintained that it was an "open-arms gesture by the Biden administration", though there was no evidence of the administration's involvement. Laura Italiano, the author of the story, resigned that day, asserting she had been "ordered" to write it. Section::::"Oldest" claim. The 1801-established newspaper describes itself as the oldest continuously published daily U.S. newspaper. However, the "New York Post" halted publication during strikes in 1958 and  in 1978. Therefore, "The Providence Journal" is understood as the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the U.S. While it began daily publication on July 21, 1829 (28 years after the New York Post), it has not halted daily publication once since its founding, unlike the New York Daily Post. "The Hartford Courant", generally understood to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in America, was founded in 1764; however, it was founded as a semi-weekly paper and did not begin publishing daily until 1836, 35 years after the "New York Post" began doing so, and cannot be considered  a true challenge to the "New York Post" claim as "the nation's oldest continuously published daily newspaper", despite it being an older continuously published paper than the "New York Post". "The New Hampshire Gazette" trademarked its claim of being "The Nation's Oldest Newspaper", as it was founded in 1756; however, it was founded as a weekly paper and since the 1890s has only published on the weekends. To date, "The New Hampshire Gazette" has never published daily and therefore cannot be considered a challenger to the "Providence Journal" and "New York Post" claims to being the nation 's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. Operations. The 1906 Old New York Evening Post Building is a designated landmark. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It occupied the building until 1926 when a new main office for the "Post" was established at 75 West Street in the New York Evening Post Building. The building remained in use by the "Post" until 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. In 1967, Schiff bought 210 South Street, the former headquarters of the "New York Journal American", which closed a year  earlier. The building became an instantly recognizable symbol for the "Post". In 1995, owner Rupert Murdoch relocated "Post"s news and business offices to the News Corporation headquarters tower at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) in midtown Manhattan. The "Post" shares this building with Fox News Channel and "The Wall Street Journal", both of which are also owned by Murdoch. Both the "Post" and the New York City edition of the "Journal" are printed at a state-of-the-art printing plant in the borough of The Bronx. The Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union has been delivering the newspaper  since the early 1900s. Website. In 1996, the "New York Post" launched an Internet version of the paper. In 2014, it launched the website "Decider", which provides recommendations for streaming services. Sales. The daily circulation of "Post" decreased in the final years of the Schiff era from 700,000 around 1967–68, to approximately 517,000 by the time she sold the paper to Murdoch in 1976. Under Murdoch, the "Post" launched a morning edition to compete directly with the rival tabloid "Daily News" in 1978, prompting the "Daily News" to retaliate with a PM edition called "Daily News Tonight". But the PM  edition suffered the same problems with worsening daytime traffic that the afternoon "Post" experienced and the "Daily News" ultimately folded "Tonight" in 1981. By that time, circulation of the all-day "Post" soared to a peak of 962,000, the bulk of the increase attributed to its morning edition (It set a single-day record of 1.1 million on August 11, 1977, with the news of the arrest the night before of David Berkowitz, the infamous "Son of Sam" serial killer who terrorized New York for much of that summer). However, the "Post" lost so much money that Murdoch decided to  shut down the "Post"s PM edition in 1982, turning the "Post" into a morning-only daily. The "Post" and the "Daily News" have been locked in a bitter circulation war ever since. A resurgence during the first decade of the 21st century saw "Post" circulation rise to 724,748 by April 2007, achieved partly by lowering the price from 50 cents to 25 cents. In October 2006, the "Post" surpassed the "Daily News" in circulation for the first time, only to see the "Daily News" overtake its rival a few months later. In 2010, the "Post"s daily circulation was 525,004, just  10,000 behind the "Daily News". , the "Post" was the fourth-largest newspaper in the United States by circulation, while the "Daily News" was ranked eighth. The "Post" has remained unprofitable since Murdoch first purchased it from Dorothy Schiff in 1976, and was on the brink of folding when Murdoch bought it back in 1993, with at least one media report in 2012 indicating that "Post" loses up to $70 million a year. One commentator has suggested that the "Post" cannot become profitable as long as the competing "Daily News" survives, and that Murdoch may be trying to force  the "Daily News" to fold or sell out, leaving the two papers in an intractable war of attrition.