offer of $7.6 million, with the Portsmouth Steel Company as their agent. The deal closed on June 6, 1952. In its first year under employee ownership, the Enquirer reported a net earnings of $349,421. Scripps ownership The employees lacked sufficient capital and managerial expertise to run the paper. City editor John F. Cronin led a revolt against management on November 25, 1955; he was fired the following month. Beset by financial problems and internal strife, they sold the paper to The E. W. Scripps Company, owner of The Cincinnati Post, on April 26, 1956. Scripps purchased a 36.5% controlling interest in the Enquirer for $4,059,000, beating out The Times-Star Company's $2,380,051 and Tribune Publishing's $15 per share, or $2,238,000. Two years later, Scripps also acquired the Times-Star, merging the afternoon paper with the Post. With the Times-Star and Enquirer acquisitions, the Scripps family owned all of Cincinnati's dailies, along with WCPO-AM, WCPO-FM, and WCPO-TV. The E. W. Scripps Company operated the Enquirer at arm's length, even omitting the Scripps lighthouse logo from the Enquirer's nameplate. Nevertheless, the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against the company in 1964. Gannett ownership and joint operating agreement In 1968, Scripps entered into a consent decree to sell the Enquirer. It was sold to influential Cincinnati millionaire Carl Lindner Jr.'s American Financial Corporation on February 20, 1971. In turn, Lindner sold the Enquirer to a Phoenix-based company of his, Combined Communications, in 1975, for $30 million plus 500,000 shares of common stock and 750,000 shares of common stock warrants in Combined Communications. Combined Communications merged with Gannett Company in 1979. On September 22, 1977, the Enquirer signed a joint operating agreement (JOA) with The Cincinnati Post. For two years, the Enquirer had secretly negotiated the terms of the JOA with the Post while securing concessions from labor unions. The two papers petitioned the Justice Department for an antitrust exemption under the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. This was the second JOA application under the Newspaper Preservation Act; the first, involving the Anchorage Daily News and Anchorage Times, was summarily approved but already seen as a failure. The Enquirer–Post agreement was approved on November 26, 1979, taking effect after negotiations and legal battles with unions. As the more financially sound paper, the Enquirer received an 80% stake in the business and handled all business functions of both papers, including printing, distribution, and