The Denver Post
Encyclopedia
Ownership
The Post is the flagship newspaper of MediaNews Group Inc.MediaNews Group
MediaNews Group, based in Denver, Colorado, is one of the largest newspaper companies in the United States. It is privately owned and operates 56 daily newspapers in 12 states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of approximately 2.4 million and 2.7 million, respectively...
, founded in 1983 by William Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder. MediaNews is today one of the nation's largest newspaper chains, publisher of 61 daily newspapers and more than 120 non-daily publications in 13 states. MediaNews bought The Denver Post from the Times Mirror Co. on Dec. 1, 1987. Times Mirror had bought the paper from the heirs of founder Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils , U.S. publisher who made the Denver Post into one of the largest newspapers in the United States....
in 1980.
Circulation
As the major newspaper in Denver, the Post ranks in the top 15 largest-circulation newspapers in the United States, with an average weekday circulation of 255,452.Website
DenverPost.com receives 4.6 million monthly unique visitors accessing 29 million pages, including 1.8 million mobile page views per month.History
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms and therefore is the only individual to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents...
with $50,000. It was a Democratic paper used to publicize political ideals and stem the number of Colorado Democrats leaving the party. Cleveland had been nominated for president because of his reputation for honest government.
However, Cleveland and eastern Democrats opposed government purchase of silver, Colorado's most important product, which made Cleveland unpopular in the state. Following the bust of silver prices in 1893, the country and Colorado went into a depression and the Evening Post suspended publication in August 1893.
A new group of owners with similar political ambitions raised $100,000 and resurrected the paper in June 1894. On October 28, 1895, Harry Heye Tammen, owner of a curio and souvenir shop, and Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils
Frederick Gilmer Bonfils , U.S. publisher who made the Denver Post into one of the largest newspapers in the United States....
, a Kansas City real estate and lottery operator, purchased the Evening Post for $12,500. Neither had newspaper experience, but they were adept at the business of promotion and finding out what people wanted to read.
Through the use of sensationalism, editorialism, and "flamboyant circus journalism," a new era began for The Post. Circulation grew and eventually passed the other three daily papers combined. On November 3, 1895 the paper's name changed to Denver Evening Post. On January 1, 1901 the word "Evening" was dropped from the name and the paper became The Denver Post.
20th century
Among well-known Post reporters were Gene FowlerGene Fowler
Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat...
and "sob sister" Polly Pry
Polly Pry
Mrs. Leonel Campbell Ross O'Bryan , under the pen name Polly Pry, was a controversial reporter for the Denver Post and later as a freelancer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...
. Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...
worked briefly for the Post in 1905–06 before gaining fame as a writer in New York.
After the deaths of Tammen and Bonfils in 1924 and 1933, Helen and May Bonfils, Bonfils' daughters, became the principal owners of The Post. In 1946, The Post hired Palmer Hoyt away from the Portland Oregonian to become editor and publisher of the Post and to give the paper a new direction. With Hoyt in charge, news was reported fairly and accurately. He took editorial comment out of the stories and put it on an editorial page. He called the page The Open Forum and it continues today.
In 1960 there was a takeover attempt by publishing mogul Samuel I. Newhouse. Helen Bonfils brought in her friend and lawyer Donald Seawell
Donald Seawell
Donald R. Seawell was born in Jonesboro, North Carolina. His father was Aaron A. F. Seawell, a Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. He graduated from the University of North Carolina, and UNC Law School. In 1941 he married Broadway actress, Eugenia Rawls, who played Tallulah Bankhead's...
to save the paper. The fight led to a series of lawsuits as Post management struggled to maintain local ownership. It lasted 13 years and drained the paper financially. When Helen Bonfils died in 1972, Seawell was named president and chairman of the board. He was also head of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts
Denver Center for the Performing Arts
The Denver Center for the Performing Arts ' is an organization in Denver, Colorado which provides a showcase for live theatre, a nurturing ground for new plays, a preferred stop on the Broadway touring circuit, a graduate-level training school for actors, acting classes for the community and rental...
(DCPA). The Center was established and financed primarily by the Frederick G. and Helen G. Bonfils foundations, with aid from city funds. The majority of the assets of the foundations came from Post stock dividends.
By 1980, the paper was losing money. Critics accused Seawell of being preoccupied with building up the DCPA. Seawell sold The Post to the Times Mirror Co. of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
for $95 million. Proceeds went to the Bonfils Foundation, securing the financial future of the DCPA. Times Mirror started morning publication and delivery. Circulation improved, but the paper did not perform as well as required. Times Mirror sold The Denver Post to Dean Singleton and MediaNews Group in 1987.
In January, 2001, MediaNews and E.W. Scripps, parent company of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News
Rocky Mountain News
The Rocky Mountain News was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As of March 2006, the Monday-Friday circulation was 255,427...
, entered into a joint operating agreement (JOA), creating the Denver Newspaper Agency
Denver Newspaper Agency
The Denver Newspaper Agency is a publishing company in Denver, Colorado, which publishes the Denver Post, a daily newspaper owned by the MediaNews Group. From its inception in 2001 until Friday, February 27, 2009, the DNA was responsible for the non-editorial operations of both major newspapers in...
, which combined the business operations of the former rivals. Under the agreement, the newsrooms of the two newspapers agreed to publish separate morning editions Monday through Friday, with The Post retaining a broadsheet format and The News using a tabloid format.
On weekends, they published a joint broadsheet newspaper on Saturday, produced by the News staff, and a broadsheet on Sunday, produced by The Post staff. Both newspapers' editorial pages appeared in both weekend papers. The JOA ended on February 27, 2009, when the Rocky Mountain News published its last issue. The following day, the Post published its first Saturday issue since 2001.
The Post launched a staff expansion program in 2001, but declining advertising revenue led to a reduction of the newsroom staff in 2006 and 2007 through layoffs, early-retirement packages, voluntary-separation buyouts and attrition.,
Editors
Editors of the Post have included:- Arnold Miller
- Robert W. Ritter 1989 -?
- F. Gilman SpencerF. Gilman SpencerFrederick Gilman Spencer III was an American newspaper editor.He was editor at The Trentonian, Philadelphia Daily News from 1975 to 1984, New York Daily News from 1984 to 1989, and The Denver Post, from 1989 to 1993...
- Neil Westergaard
- Dennis A. Britton
- Glenn Guzzo
- Gregory L. MooreGregory L. MooreGregory L. Moore has been the editor of the Denver Post since June, 2002. Previously, he had been managing editor of The Boston Globe since 1994...
2002-current
Notable columnists
Current columnists include Woody PaigeWoody Paige
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Paige, Jr. is a sports columnist for The Denver Post, author, and a regular panelist on the ESPN sports-talk program Around the Horn. He was also a co-host of Cold Pizza and its spin-off show 1st and 10 until Nov. 4, 2006, when it was announced that Paige would return to the...
, Jim Armstrong
Jim Armstrong (sports journalist)
Jim Armstrong is a sportswriter who worked for the Denver Post. Since joining the paper in 1994, he has covered the Colorado Rockies, Denver Broncos, Denver Nuggets and was a columnist at his termination 2011-11-04 in a sports betting scandal. He also writes for America Online and has appeared on...
in Sports; Tom Noel
Thomas Noel (historian)
Thomas Jacob Noel, often introduced in media interviews as Dr. Colorado, is an American historian specializing in the history of the Rocky Mountain West, and especially of the state of Colorado...
on local history; Mike Rosen
Mike Rosen
Michael "Mike" Rosen is an American radio personality and political commentator. He is the host of The Mike Rosen Show on talk radio station 850 KOA in Denver, Colorado, as well as a weekly opinion columnist for The Denver Post and previously a weekly opinion columnist for the Rocky Mountain News...
on the commentary page. Notable former columnists include David Harsanyi
David Harsanyi
David Harsanyi is an American journalist. He is a nationally syndicated columnist. Formerly an opinion columnist at The Denver Post, his writings on politics and culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard, Washington Post, National Review, Reason, Christian Science Monitor,...
and Al Lewis, whose work still appears in the paper as a feature from Dow Jones Newswires.
Pulitzer Prizes
The Denver Post has won seven Pulitzer Prizes:- 1964: Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons by Paul ConradPaul ConradPaul Francis Conrad was an American political cartoonist from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During college, Conrad started cartooning at the University of Iowa for the Daily Iowan. While serving with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, during World War II, Conrad received a B.A. in art in 1950...
. - 1967: Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning by Pat OliphantPat OliphantPatrick Bruce "Pat" Oliphant is the most widely syndicated political cartoonist in the world, described by the New York Times as "the most influential cartoonist now working"...
. - 1984: Pulitzer Prize for photography by Anthony Suau.
- 1986: Pulitzer Prize for public service for a series on missing children.
- 2000: Pulitzer Prize for its breaking news coverage of the Columbine High School massacreColumbine High School massacreThe Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...
. - 2010: Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for Craig F. Walker
- 2011: Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons by Mike KeefeMike KeefeMike Keefe is an American editorial cartoonist best known for his work at the Denver Post, for which he has drawn cartoons since 1975. His cartoons are nationally syndicated, and have appeared in hundreds of newspapers as well as in Europe, Asia, and most major U.S...
.
References not listed below can be found on the linked pages.
Recent National and International Awards
- 2007: Pulitzer Prize finalist in breaking news for The Denver Posts coverage of Colorado's back-to-back blizzards.
- 2007: Four awards for outstanding business coverage from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW). The project-reporting winner was the Posts 2006 series on Colorado's mortgage foreclosure epidemic, "Foreclosing on the American Dream."
- 2007: Former Post staff writer Eric Gorski was awarded first place in "Best of the West" contest in the Business and Financial Reporting category for "The Gospel of Prosperity," a look at the finances of the Heritage Christian Center.
- 2007: Visual journalists at The Post won 10 awards in two international newspaper competitions - nine Awards of Excellence in the 28th annual Society of News Design judging and a bronze medal in the 15th annual Malofiej International Infographic Awards, held in Pamplona, Spain.
Recent Local Awards
- 2007: The Denver Post won 22 top awards in two Colorado journalism contests, including the award for general excellence from the Colorado Associated Press Editors and Reporters (CAPER). The staff of denverpost.com was awarded top honors for online breaking news.
- 2007: The Mountain States Office of the Anti-Defamation League presented Denver Post editorial cartoonist Mike KeefeMike KeefeMike Keefe is an American editorial cartoonist best known for his work at the Denver Post, for which he has drawn cartoons since 1975. His cartoons are nationally syndicated, and have appeared in hundreds of newspapers as well as in Europe, Asia, and most major U.S...
with its annual Freedom of the Press award.
Print material
- History of Denver, by Jerome C. Smiley, 1901, page 672.
- Voice of Empire A Centennial Sketch of The Denver Post, by William H. Hornby, page 8.