CINCINNATI, Ohio – The E.W. Scripps Company announced today that The Edward W. Scripps Trust, controlling shareholder of the company, plans to commence a public offering of up to 7 million of the company’s Class A Common Shares. The Shares will be offered pursuant to a shelf registration statement filed with the SEC by the company on March 25, 2003.The company will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares by the trust. The offering will be underwritten with Morgan Stanley as the lead manager and Merrill Lynch as co-manager. A written prospectus may be obtained from the underwriters. The Scripps Trust has advised the company that the decision to sell shares is in keeping with its long-term effort to diversify the trust’s assets. The trust’s most recent sale of Scripps Class A Common Shares was in the summer of 1998. The company’s Class A Common Shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “SSP.” There is no active market for the company’s other class of stock – Common Voting.The trust currently owns 47.1 percent of the company’s outstanding 61.7 million Class A Common Shares and 87.3 percent of the outstanding 18.4 million Common Voting Shares. Celebrating its 125th anniversary, The E.W. Scripps Company is a diverse media concern with interests in newspaper publishing, broadcast television, national television networks, interactive media and television-retailing. Scripps operates 21 daily newspapers, 10 broadcast TV stations, four cable and satellite television programming services and a home shopping network. All of the company’s media businesses provide content and advertising services via the Internet.Scripps also operates Scripps Howard News Service and United Media, which is the worldwide licensing and syndication home of PEANUTS and DILBERT.