Are we there yet?

June 5-11, 2017

By Jay Edwards

I always thought it would have been fun to work at the New York Post. What better place to learn the ins and outs of unbiased reporting than at the paper the Columbia Journalism Review said of back in 1980, “The New York Post is no longer merely a journalistic problem, it is a social problem – a force for evil.”

It was in the autumn of 1801 that Alexander Hamilton founded the Post, aided by $10,000 he had raised from investors.

In 1976, Rupert Murdoch bought Post for $30.5 million. Since 1993, the Post has been owned by News Corporation and its successor, News Corp, which had owned it previously from 1976 to 1988.

It is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. by circulation, due to Murdoch, who imported the sensationalist “tabloid journalism” style. Here are some of the more memorable headlines -

‘I AM DEATH WISH VIGILANTE’ (Bernie Goetz turns himself in; 1985) The facts of the case were comparatively simple. A few days before Christmas in 1984 Bernhard Goetz boarded a southbound Seventh Avenue express near his home at 14th Street. There were four teenage boys in the car—Barry Allen, Troy Canty, James Ramseur, and Darrell Cabey. They were laying over most of the seats and generally behaving badly. Goetz may not have noticed it as he entered, but the other passengers had moved to the far end of the car. One of the boys looked at Goetz and casually asked, “How are ya?” Then two of the boys approached him and asked for five dollars. Goetz, thinking he was about to be mugged, took a gun from his pocket and fired it five times. He may have fired all five in rapid succession or he may have paused after the fourth and said, “You seem to be all right; here’s another.” He then went to the platform between the subway cars, unfastened the safety chain, and escaped into the tunnel. On December 31 he surrendered to the police in Concord, New Hampshire.

I saw him in Manhattan in the fall of 1988, in FAO Schwarz Toy Store. He was looking at toy trains.

Other headline gems -

‘KISS YOUR ASTEROID GOODBYE’ (Meteor Misses Earth; 1998) This one, thankfully, did miss.

‘HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR’ (1992)  - The all time classic and the title of the book of headlines put together by the staff of the Post.

 On November 8, 2000, the Post printed “BUSH WINS!” in a huge headline, although the presidential election remained in doubt because of the recount needed in Florida.

On April 21, 2006, several Asian-American advocacy groups protested the use of the headline “WOK THIS WAY” for a Post article about President Bush’s meeting with the president of the People’s Republic of China.

‘DEAD!’ (Picture of the electric chair execution of Ruth Snyder, a Queens housewife, who with the aid of her corset salesman lover, planned and carried out the murder of her husband. (1928)

Finally, in a non-Post headline but one that surely made Murdoch proud, the Armagh Gazette in Northern Ireland ran a story in 2013 on Minister Danny Kennedy’s railway service consultation exercise.

Getting a gripping headline out of a story like that might have been a tough chore for most journalists.

The Gazette, however, ran with, “Over £100m! Is this the rail price? Is this just fantasy? Caught up in land buys, No escape from bureaucracy!”

Those big Freddie Mercury teeth have to be smiling.

Jay Edwards is publisher of the Daily Record. Contact him at jedwards@dailydata.com.  

PHOTO CAPTION

April 15, 1983 (nypost.com)