E. W. Scripps

For more information on Edward Willis Scripps, visit Britannica.com.

Type: Private - Not-for-Profit
On the web: http://www.scripps.org
Employees: 11,000

Scripps Health has its medical script down pat. The not-for-profit hospital group serves the San Diego area through about a half dozen acute-care hospitals with some 1,400 beds and 20 outpatient clinic locations. The system also offers home health care and operates community outreach programs. Its hospitals, along with outpatient Scripps Clinic and Scripps Coastal Medical Center locations, include more than 2,600 affiliated general practice and specialty physicians. Scripps Health is affiliated with The Scripps Research Institute, which performs biomedical research. The Scripps Foundation for Medicine and Science serves as a fundraiser for both the hospital group and the research institute.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending September, 2008:
Sales: $1,953.8M

Officers:
Chairman: Richard Vortmann
EVP and CFO: Richard Rothberger
SVP and Chief Development Officer: John B. Engle

Competitors:
Kaiser Permanente
Sharp HealthCare
UCSD Medical

The confidence of Edward Wyllis Scripps (1854-1926) in free enterprise and democracy enabled him to create the first newspaper chain in the United States and to contribute significantly to the new journalism of his era.

Born in Rushville, Ill., on June 18, 1854, E. W. Scripps came from a publishing family. His grandfather had issued the London Literary Gazette, and relatives in America were associated with newspapers. Scripps was raised on the family farm in Winchester, Ohio. At 18 he became an office boy on the Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, managed and owned by his half brother James Scripps. Later he served in business and editorial capacities for James. Borrowing money from relatives, notably his half sister Ellen, who would be his close associate for 40 years, Scripps founded the Cleveland Penny Press in 1877.

Scripps was a philosopher of journalism as well as a businessman. He believed that the psychology of people had to be studied if they were to be satisfied. He reached controversial conclusions over the years, as when he held that "one mature white American is a better prospect [as a newspaper purchaser] than two or three Negroes or comparatively recent immigrants…." On the other hand, he thought that the differences between people were the products of accident and environment. He fought boldly and under stress for the right to print news independently, and he was conspicuous in battles against municipal corruption.

In 1880 Scripps again joined relatives to take on the St. Louis Evening Chronicle and then the paper that became the Cincinnati Post. With the Detroit and Cleveland papers, they constituted the first newspaper chain in the country. Disagreements in policy, particularly Scripps's liberal, prolabor views, caused Scripps to leave the group with only the Cincinnati Post. He began a drive which multiplied his newspaper holdings in the Midwest and South, retaining 51 percent of stock in all papers. In 1889 he and Milton A. McRae founded the Scripps-McRae League of Newspapers. Dissatisfied with telegraphic news from the Associated Press and opposing its monopolistic features, in 1897 Scripps organized the Scripps-McRae Press Association, later the United Press Association. Scripps later developed a feature service, the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

Although Scripps maintained rigid control of his properties, he sought to spread responsibility for them among associates, and by the time of his death on March 12, 1926, he owned only 40 percent of the stock. Scripps's interest in science expressed itself in his organization (1920) of the journalistic Science Service. With his sister he also endowed what became the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at La Jolla, Calif.

Further Reading

Scripps speaks for himself in two books: one arranged by his family and edited by Charles R. McCabe, Damned Old Crank (1951), the other edited by Oliver Knight, I Protest (1966), a volume of "selected disquisitions." Biographical accounts written by associates are Gilson Gardner, Lusty Scripps: The Life of E. W. Scripps (1932), and Negley O. Cochran, E. W. Scripps (1933). Scripps figures also in Milton A. McRae, Forty Years in Newspaperdom (1924).

Additional Sources

A Celebration of the legacies of E.W. Scripps: his life, works and heritage: symposium: Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, March 2-3, 1990, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, 1990.

Preece, Charles, Edward Willis and Ellen Browning Scripps: an unmatched pair: a biography, Chelsea, MI: Bookcrafters, 1990.

Trimble, Vance H., The astonishing Mr. Scripps: the turbulent life of America's penny press lord, Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1992.

Quotes:

"A man can do anything he wants to do in this world, at least if he wants to do it badly enough."

E. W. Scripps, ca.1912

Edward Willis Scripps (June 18, 1854 – March 12, 1926), was an American newspaper publisher and founder of The E. W. Scripps Company, a diversified media conglomerate, and United Press news service. It became United Press International (UPI) when International News Service merged with United Press in 1958. The E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University is named for him.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Newspaper career 3 Later life 4 References 5 See also 6 External links

Early life

E. W. Scripps was born and raised in Rushville, Illinois, to James Mogg Scripps from London, and Julia Adeline Osborne (third wife) (1855 - 1937) from New York. E. W. was the youngest of five children born to James and Julia. James had seven children from previous marriages.

E. W., as with many businessmen of his day, went by his initials rather than writing out his first and middle name. His middle name is often incorrectly written as Wyllis.

Newspaper career

Both E. W. and his half-sister Ellen worked with his older half-brother, James when he founded The Detroit News in 1873. E. W. started as an office boy at the paper. In 1878, with loans from his half-brothers, E. W. went on to found The Penny Press (later the Cleveland Press) in Cleveland. With financial support from sister Ellen, he went on to begin or acquire some 25 newspapers. This was the beginning of a media empire that is now the E. W. Scripps Company.

E. W. would lend money to promising young, local newspaper publishers, and buy the successful one, having 51% share of the paper. Once bought, he did not "sell out," but held on to the paper. A guiding tenet of E. W. was that local editors know best about running local newspapers. Editors were carefully groomed and given considerable autonomy. Among the innovations E. W. made were distributing newspapers to the suburbs and, with his brother James, of getting the bulk of income from advertisers instead of subscribers.

In 1907, Scripps created United Press Associations, later the UPI news service, from smaller regional news services. Scripps later said "I regard my life's greatest service to the people of this country to be the creation of the United Press", to provide competition to the Associated Press.

Scripps held a relatively unconventional view of the press, stating,

A newspaper fairly and honestly conducted in the interests of the great masses of the public must at all times antagonize the selfish interests of that very class [the advertisers] which furnishes the larger part of a newspaper's income. It must occasionally so antagonize this class as to cause it not only to cease patronage, to a greater or lesser extent, but to make actually offensive warfare against the newspaper.^[1]

Later life

In 1898, he finished building a home in San Diego, where his half-sister lived nearby, thinking that the dry, warm climate would help his colds that he had all his life. He built it as a winter home to escape the cold of Illinois, but eventually lived there year round, and conducted his newspaper business from the ranch. His ranch encompassed what is today the community of Scripps Ranch as well as Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

In 1903, he and his half-sister Ellen were the founding donors of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Initially Scripps was reluctant to support the venture, thinking scientists could not be businesslike. However, he developed a deep friendship with the scientific director, William Emerson Ritter, and together they began to plan projects for the Institute. As the Institute started to succeed, he became an enthusiastic supporter, and took a great interest in its work.

In 1921, Scripps founded Science Service, later renamed Society for Science & the Public, with the goal of keeping the public informed of scientific achievements. The organization continues to run as a non-profit dedicated to the promotion of science.

Scripps became somewhat of a hermit, calling himself a "damned old crank." He enjoyed sailing the seven seas on a yacht, smoking 50 cigars a day.

Scripps died at the age of 71 in March 12, 1926. Among his descendants was Samuel H. Scripps (1927 – 2007), grandson, who became a leading philanthropist for theater in dance in America in the late 20th century.

References

1. ^ MacColl, E. Kimbark. The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon 1915-1950. Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press. ISBN 0-9603408-1-5. 

See also

• E. W. Scripps Company (formerly Scripps-Howard)
• E. W. Scripps (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1933) by Negley D. Cochran
• E. W. Scripps and the Business of Newspapers (1999) by Gerald J. Baldasty. ISBN 0-252-06750-9.
• Science Service as one Expression of E. W. Scripps's Philosophy of Life. (Washington, D.C.: Science Service, 1926) by William E. Ritter
• "Newspaper Man", Time, March 22, 1926
• Samuel H. Scripps Grandson, and philanthropist in theater in dance.

External links

• E. W. Scripps Papers, Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections, Ohio University Libraries, Athens, Ohio. Manuscript collection, primarily correspondence, small amount online.
• "How Scripps Institution Came To San Diego", The Journal of San Diego History 27:3 (Summer 1981) by Elizabeth N. Shor
• "Our Pioneers" The E. W. Scripps Company

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