cincinnati enquirer

The Cincinnati Enquirer is a daily morning newspaper published at Cincinnati, Ohio, the larger of the two dailies of that city. The paper is owned by the Gannett Company, and has a joint operating agreement with the afternoon daily, The Cincinnati Post, under which it handles all business functions of both papers. The Enquirer has notified The Post it intends to let the JOA expire in 2007, after which The Enquirer likely will be the city's only daily. The Enquirer has a daily circulation of nearly 190,000 and Sunday circulation of 293,000.

History

The Enquirer was first published April 10, 1841. The Enquirer became one of the first newspapers in the United States to publish a Sunday edition beginning on April 20, 1848. In at least the decade of the 1850s, The Enquirer also published a weekly digest edition for regional farmers. From before the Civil War to 1881, The Enquirer was owned by Washington McLean, a Copperhead whose editorial policies led to the suppression of the paper by the United States government during the Civil War. After the war, McLean pursued an anti-Republican stance. One of his star writers was Lafcadio Hearn, who wrote for the paper from 1872 to 1875. From 1881 to his death in 1916, it was run by his son, John Roll McLean. Having little faith in his only child, Ned, John Roll McLean put the Enquirer and another paper he owned, The Washington Post, in trust with a Washington, D.C. bank as trustee. Ned successfully broke the trust regarding The Post, an action that led to its bankruptcy and eventual sale to Eugene Meyer in 1933. The Enquirer, however, continued to be held in trust until 1952.

During the 1930s and 1940s, The Enquirer was widely regarded among newspapers for its innovative and distinctive typography.

In 1952, the bank decided to sell to Charles Phelps Taft, the owner of the Cincinnati Times-Star and a member of the presidential Taft family, but the employees of the paper pooled their assets and obtained loans to outbid him. However, they lacked sufficient capital and managerial expertise to run the paper. Beset by financial problems and internal strife, the paper was sold to The E. W. Scripps Company in 1956, the owner of The Cincinnati Post. Scripps held the paper until 1968 when it was forced to sell after the government successfully brought an anti-trust action. American Financial, a company controlled by Cincinnati millionaire Carl Lindner bought the paper, selling it to another Lindner company, Combined Communications, in 1969. Combined, based in Phoenix, merged with Gannett in 1979.

In 1977, the paper entered into a joint operating agreement with the other daily in Cincinnati, the afternoon Cincinnati Post. Under the agreement, The Enquirer handles all business functions of both papers, including printing, distribution, and selling advertising. In January 2004, The Enquirer informed the Post it would not be renewing the agreement upon its expiration December 31, 2007. This may lead to the sale or closure of the Post, which could leave The Enquirer as the only daily morning newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, a region that is home to more than 30 local weekly newspapers and several magazines and tabloids.

Recent history

On November 1, 1996, The Enquirer initiated daily publication of a free Internet editon containing most of the local content produced by its reporters, photographers, and columnists. The Enquirer also launched GoCinci.Net, a free World Wide Web site that presented content from The Enquirer and the Post. In August 1998, The Enquirer renamed its Web site Cincinnati.com. In May 2002, Cincinnati.com was expanded to represent local news competitor WCPO-TV, owned by Scripps-Howard (E.W. Scripps Company).

On May 3, 1998, The Enquirer published an eighteen-page section, "Chiquita Secrets Revealed" on Chiquita Brands International, the Cincinnati-based fruit company formerly known as the United Fruit Company and now controlled by Carl Lindner. The articles, written by Enquirer investigative reporters Michael Gallagher and Cameron McWhirter, charged the company with mistreating the workers on its Central American plantations, polluting the environment, allowing cocaine to be brought to America on its ships, bribing foreign officials, evading foreign nations' laws on land ownership, forcibly preventing its workers from unionizing, and a host of other misdeeds. Chiquita denied all of the allegations, suing after it was revealed the newspaper's reporters had hacked into Chiquita's voice-mail system. A special prosecutor was appointed to investigate—the elected prosecutor having ties to Lindner. On June 28, 1998, The Enquirer retracted the entire series of stories, published a front-page apology, and paid the company a multi-million dollar settlement. (The Columbia Journalism Review would report both $14 million and $50 million for the amount.) One of the reporters, Gallagher, would be fired and prosecuted and the paper's editor, Lawrence K. Beaupre, would be transferred to Gannett's headquarters amid allegations that he ignored the paper's usual procedures on fact-checking in order to win a Pulitzer Prize. Beaupre later left Gannett and filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he was made a scapegoat for the Chiquita debacle. The suit was settled and Beaupre is now managing editor of the The Times-Tribune newspaper in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

In May 2003, Gannett Co. replaced Harry Whipple, who had been president and publisher for 11 years. The new publisher, Margaret E. Buchanan, is a Cincinnati native who was previously publisher of the Idaho Statesman in Boise, Idaho. She is the newspaper's first woman publisher.

In 2003 and 2004, The Enquirer reassigned most of its local columnists to reporting roles. John Kiesewetter, whose column covered television and radio, was made a beat reporter in Butler County, Ohio. Columnist Laura Pulfer left the paper and moved to northern Ohio. Human interest columnist Cliff Radel was made a beat reporter as was society columnist Jim Knippenberg. Music critic Larry Nager was fired on January 9, 2004, and he filed a federal lawsuit charging the paper with age discrimination. Nager claims the Enquirer has been trying to appeal to young women and has been eliminating older and male writers as part of this strategy.

In October, 2003 The Enquirer began publishing and distributing CiN Weekly, a free lifestyle magazine aimed at younger readers. The paper is the home of Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jim Borgman.

Trivia

• The first known reference to Chicago, Illinois, as "The Windy City" appeared in the Enquirer May 9, 1876.

Bibliography

• Nicholas Bender. "Banana Report." Columbia Journalism Review. May/June 2001.
• Graydon Decamp. The Grand Old Lady of Vine Street. Cincinnati: The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1991. (Official history).
• Douglas Frantz. "After Apology, Issues Raised In Chiquita Articles Remain." The New York Times. July 17, 1998. p. A1, A14
• Douglas Frantz. "Mysteries Behind Story's Publication." The New York Times. July 17, 1998. p. A14.
• Lew Moores. "Media, Myself & I". Cincinnati CityBeat. January 7, 2004.
• Lew Moores. "The Day the Music Critic Died." Cincinnati CityBeat. February 11, 2004.
• Randolph Reddick. The Old Lady of Vine Street. Ohio University Ph.D. dissertation, 1991. (A study of the four years of employee ownership).
• Nicholas Stein. "Banana Peel." Columbia Journalism Review. September/October 1998.

External links

• Enquirer.com (official site)
• Cincinnati.Com (official site)
• Cinweekly.com (official site)
• Gannett Co. Inc. official site
• Gannett subsidiary profile of The Cincinnati Enquirer