Dorothy Schiff

Dorothy Schiff ( born March 11, 1903 in New York; † August 30, 1989 ibid ) was an American newspaper publisher. She was almost four decades, the owner of the New York Post, which evolved at that time to become an influential liberal tabloid.

Life

Early years

Ship came from a very wealthy Jewish family with German roots. Her grandfather was the banker Jakob Heinrich Schiff, her father whose legacy Mortimer L. ship. She grew up in Manhattan. Ship itself described her childhood later than unhappy parents. Than loveless, strict and stingy As a teenager, she read a lot. Your only social contacts were in daughters of high society with which they distinguished the private Brearley School visited. There she graduated from in 1920.

Then she began to study at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, but broke it off after a year. You fell in love with their fellow students Richard BW Hall, whose family was less affluent than their. After longer accepted vessel resistance connecting the two parents. The marriage was closed in 1923 and converted Episcopalian ship of her husband. In the following two years, two children were born, a son and daughter.

When her parents died in 1931 and she was able to take an extensive inheritance ship took this as an opportunity to get a divorce from her husband, from whom she is estranged. She recanted her conversion. In 1932 she married again, this time the liberal author George Backer. Until then, the Republican Party politically related parties, it was a Democrat under the influence of her second husband. In the presidential elections of 1936 she worked as an election judge for Franklin D. Roosevelt, with whom she was friends later. In addition, they now became involved for the first time in charities. She was a member of the board of the Henry Street Settlement and the Mount Sinai Hospital and worked for the children's welfare institution of the City of New York.

Newspaper publisher

At the urging of her husband bought the ship in 1939, the majority of the shares on the New York Post, of a daily afternoon newspaper and one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. At this time the edition was however significantly lower than the direct competition back, and she was in the red. Inexperienced in business matters, left the ship her husband 's role as a publisher and editor in chief. The blade made ​​in the following two years, two million loss and ship had to fear losing their entire investment, and thus a third of their heritage. They now decided against the resistance of Backer, to convert the New York Post, a tabloid. She took on himself the role as editor and put the arts editor Ted Thackrey, who had assisted in the change of course, as a new editor. Ship parted from Backer and married in 1943 Thackrey.

Under the direction Thackreys the circulation of the newspaper grew, the losses were lower. Ship held at the New York Post continues in the background. She bought in that time some television and radio stations, but they sold later. During the presidential campaign in 1948, the couple released a series of columns in which they fought out their political disagreements publicly ( they each support different candidates against eventual champion Harry S. Truman ). The following year, the couple separated.

Ship, which again took her birth name after the third divorce, now sat James A. changer as editor in chief, who held this post until 1961. Under his able leadership, the New York Post flourished. The circulation increased greatly and the newspaper generated from 1950 profits. Although still a lurid style has been maintained and dominated the headlines in gossip, the newspaper profiled by their liberal political orientation. The populist style included unveiling tales of exploitation at work as well as attacks on influential figures such as the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Joseph McCarthy and the urban planner Robert Moses. Ship now took strong interest in the business and content- orientation of the newspaper. The first newspaper publisher in New York had a reputation for always pushing for cost savings. As a result of the relatively low salaries that were paid, the newspaper talented employees lost again to the competition.

After the replacement of changer as editor in chief in 1961 ( he remained until 1980 Columnist ) entered politics in the pages of the New York Post in the background. Ship supported John F. Kennedy as president, but her newspaper suffered because the times were past when circulation -promoting campaigns against a republican government could be performed. Competing newspapers were discontinued though and ship invested in technological innovations, but it was increasingly skeptical that the New York Post could continue to wear. Always concerned about their financial well-being, she decided, after the newspaper had for two years been run losses in 1976 for sale. She was at that time 73 years old. For $ 31 million, the Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch took over the paper. Ship it remained in the function of a consultant connected to 1981. In the following years, the New York Post turned into a conservative journal, an orientation that is still valid today.

Private

Ship was four times married. After the marriage with Richard BW Hall (1923-1931), George Baker (1932-1943) and Ted Thackrey (1943-1949) married 1953 Rudolf Sonneborn, an industrialist from Baltimore. The couple separated in 1965. Besides the two children from his marriage to ship Hall had another daughter from her second marriage.

Ship was in its time one of the most colorful personalities of New York society. In addition to the four husbands she had numerous affairs, a circumstance over which they candidly reported even in interviews. Your biographer Jeffrey Potter, she told, even President Roosevelt had been one of her lovers. This started around the time the Potter book in 1976 a scandal reported on the even the staid New York Times on the front page. In later years, ship distanced from their utterances and the book.

When she learned in May 1989 that she had cancer, she refused treatment. Dorothy ship died three months later at the age of 86 years in her hometown of New York.