Сент-Луис Пост-Диспеч: Тарихы мен жетістіктері

Daily newspaper in Missouri, United States

The St. Louis Post Dispatch is a regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the Belleville News Democrat, Alton Telegraph, and Edwardsville Intelligencer. The publication has received 19 Pulitzer Prizes. The paper is owned by Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, which purchased Pulitzer, Inc. in 2005 in a cash deal valued at $1.46 billion.

In 1878, Pulitzer purchased the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch at a public auction and merged it with the St. Louis Evening Post to create the St. Louis Post and Dispatch, whose title was soon shortened to its current form. He appointed John A. Cockerill as the managing editor. Its first edition, 4,020 copies of four pages each, appeared on December 12, 1878. In 1882, James Overton Broadhead ran for Congress against John Glover. The St. Louis Post Dispatch, at Cockerill's direction, ran a number of articles questioning Broadhead's role in a lawsuit between a gaslight company and the city; Broadhead never responded to the charges. Broadhead's friend and law partner, Alonzo W. Slayback, publicly defended Broadhead, asserting that the Post Dispatch was nothing more than a "blackmailing sheet". The next day, October 13, 1882, Cockerill re ran an offensive "card" by John Glover that the paper had published the prior year (November 11, 1881). Incensed, Slayback barged into Cockerill's offices at the paper demanding an apology. Cockerill shot and killed Slayback; he claimed self defense, and a pistol was allegedly found on Slayback's body. A grand jury refused to indict Cockerill for murder, but the economic consequences for the paper were severe. In May 1883, Pulitzer sent Cockerill to New York to manage the New York World for him. The Post Dispatch was one of the first daily newspapers to print a comics section in color, on the back page of the features section, styled the "Everyday Magazine."

At one time, the St. Louis Post Dispatch had the second largest news bureau in Washington, D. C., of any newspaper in the Midwestern United States. After Joseph Pulitzer's retirement, generations of Pulitzers guided the newspaper, ending when great grandson Joseph Pulitzer IV left the company in 1995. The Post Dispatch was characterized by a liberal editorial page and columnists, including Marquis Childs. The editorial page was noted also for political cartoons by Daniel R. Fitzpatrick, who won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons, and Bill Mauldin, who won the Pulitzer for editorial cartoons in 1959. On May 22, 1946, the Post Dispatch became the first newspaper in the world to publish the secret protocols for the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. During the presidency of Harry S. Truman, the paper was one of his most outspoken critics. It associated him with the Pendergast machine in Kansas City, and constantly attacked his integrity. In 1950, the Post Dispatch sent a reporter, Dent McSkimming, to Brazil to cover the 1950 FIFA World Cup. The reporter paid for his own travelling expenses and was the only U. S. reporter in all of Brazil covering the event. In 1959 the St. Louis Globe Democrat entered into a joint operating agreement with the Post Dispatch. The Post–Globe operation merged advertising, printing functions and shared profits. The Post Dispatch, distributed evenings, had a smaller circulation than the Globe Democrat, a morning daily. The Globe Democrat folded in 1983, leaving the Post Dispatch as the only daily newspaper in the region. In August 1973 a Teamsters union local representing Globe Democrat and Post Dispatch staffers went on strike, halting production for six weeks.

Circulation dropped for the daily paper from 213,472 to 191,631 and then 178,801 for the two years after 2010, ending on September 30, 2011, and September 30, 2012, respectively. The Sunday paper also decreased from 401,427 to 332,825 and then to 299,227. The circulation as of September 30, 2016, was 98,104 daily and 157,543 on Sunday. According to a 2017 press release from Lee Enterprises, the paper reaches more than 792,600 readers each week and stltoday. com has roughly 67 million page views a month. The paper sells for $2 daily or $4 on Sundays and Thanksgiving Day. The price may be higher outside adjacent counties and states. Sales tax is included at newsracks.

On February 11, 1901, the paper introduced a front page feature called the "Weatherbird", a cartoon bird accompanying the daily weather forecast. "Weatherbird" is the oldest continuously published cartoon in the United States. Created by Harry B. Martin, who drew it through 1903, it has since been drawn by Oscar Chopin (1903–1910); S. Carlisle Martin (1910–1932); Amadee Wohlschlaeger (1932–1981); Albert Schweitzer, the first one to draw the Weatherbird in color (1981–1986); and Dan Martin (1986–present).