The Press: Mr. Cleveland’s Competition

In circulation, the morning Cleveland Plain Dealer (285,540) and evening Cleveland Press (310,858) run almost neck and neck. But in one other respect the Plain Dealer is no match for the Press; Press Editor Louis B. Seltzer is Cleveland’s leading citizen, its biggest civic and political power, and an all-round asset to the Press which the Plain Dealer has never tried to match. Last week the Plain Dealer made its first try. As its new editor, the Plain Dealer named Wright Bryan, 48, tall (6 ft. 5 in.), civic-leading editor of the Atlanta Journal, to replace the Plain Dealer’s ailing Paul Bellamy, 68, who has been running the paper for the past 25 years. Bellamy, son of the late Edward (Looking Backward) Bellamy, will remain on the staff as “editor emeritus.”

Bryan, who was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors last year, started on the Journal as a cub after attending the University of Missouri School of Journalism, became managing editor in 1940. During World War II, he went to Europe as a correspondent, was wounded, captured by the Germans, and, after several months, freed by the Russians from a prison camp in Poland. After his return to the Journal, he was named editor in 1945. In Atlanta, Bryan has spent almost as much time at public speaking and creating good will for the paper as he has spent editing it. Says he: “I have many friends in the Cleveland area.”