The Press: Enter the Observer

On newsstands, the new Sunday paper had a clean, uncluttered look (six columns to the page instead of the customary eight), and it was certainly easy to carry home (8 oz. v. the 4 Ib. 2 oz. of the New York Times). The pictures were played for dramatic effect: a blast-off shot of Saturn, the U.S.’s largest rocket, soared majestically the length of the page; a glowering portrait of Brigadier General William B. Rosson, the U.S. Army’s guerrilla warfare expert, was brutally cropped to eliminate part of the general’s brow, all of his hair and his left ear. Even the paper on which the newcomer was printed seemed whiter by several degrees than ordinary oyster-grey newsprint—as indeed it was. Thus last week, after a five-month gestation, was born the National Observer, the U.S.’s first serious try at a national newspaper.

Although billed as a Sunday paper, the Observer bore little resemblance to the laminated bundle of news, features, supplements and comics that characterize the rest of the Sunday press. Vol. I, No. 1 of the Observer was a single section of 32 pages—half of it ads. Of six Page One stories, four datelessly treated trends or events long since dissected by other newspapers, e.g., a lengthy article on police corruption that reprised a Chicago police department scandal (1960) and a similar dustup in Denver.

No Detectable Plan. Inside, the Observer scattered, according to no detectable pattern, a clutch of articles, feature stories, puzzles, pictures, cartoons, weather maps and poetry (including all 60 lines of John Greenleaf Whittier’s Barbara Frietchie). Two stories on Pope John XXIII ran on separate pages (4 and 26); an obituary on Violinist Fritz Kreisler appeared on page 8, an obituary on French Artist Andre Lhote on page 15. Readers anxious to discover how the new paper would deal with U.S. culture were soon disillusioned: the Observer begged the question. Theater and book reviews were shot through with a rehash of newspaper and magazine critics, a technique reminiscent of the defunct Literary Digest.

Among the feature pieces, one quoted an educational consultant’s discovery that some Midwest grade school students cannot spell. Another story speculated for Observer readers on what it would be like if Algerian-style plastiqueurs were loose in New York: “On any given Saturday night in Times Square a car would pull up to the curb and spray machinegun bullets into the crowds … A bomb would be thrown into New York’s Carnegie Hall . . . Taxi drivers, bus drivers and mailmen would be killed in every section of the city. Crowded Harlem tenements would be blown up on an average of one a month.”

Wherever a column of print fell short of page length, the Observer dropped in an item whose only visible purpose was to reach the bottom of the page. Sample: “John E. Roberts, editor of Charity and Children, was elected president of the Baptist Public Relations Association last week.”

Prenatal Enthusiasm. By no accident, the Observer was at its journalistic best in a brisk fact-filled summary, taking up about half a page, of business trends. Its doting and wealthy parent is Dow Jones & Co.’s Wall Street Journal (circ. 821,401). On the strength of its own success, and with a national news organization ready at hand, the Journal last summer decided to publish a national newspaper whose readership would embrace not just businessmen but “intelligent readers” everywhere.

When word of the venture was released, prenatal public response was so enthusiastic that the Journal had to scrub original plans to print its offspring only in Washington and limit the first press run to 200,000. Last week’s Observer, the fruit of twelve dummy issues and of an investment of $1,000,000, was printed (on Saturday) in three of the Journal’s seven printing plants—Washington, Chicago and Chicopee Falls, Mass. Of the initial press run of 422,000, some 290,000 copies (25¢) were sold on newsstands or by home delivery. The other 132,000 reached mail subscribers ($10 a year) on Monday or Tuesday. Eventually, the Observer hopes to distribute largely by newsstand or home delivery so that most readers will get their paper on Sunday.

Response from advertisers has also been encouraging. By policy, ads are limited to 50% of available space. The Observer not only reached that 16-page limit in its first issue but also turned down five pages’ worth of accounts anxious to get in on the debut.

In charge of the editorial operation are Editor William Giles, 34, a longtime (eleven years) Journal hand whose last job was as a reporter in the Journal’s Washington bureau, and Managing Editor Don Carter, 44. Giles presides in the Observer’s Washington headquarters over an editorial staff of 29, many of them rewrite men. Until the paper has mustered a reportorial staff of its own, it will rely largely on contributions from some 40 part-time U.S. correspondents and from freelance reporters, does not intend to tap the parent Journal’s extensive editorial resources except in emergencies.

Reaction to the Observer’s first issue ranged from qualified approval to frank disappointment. “A professional job with excellent writing,” said John Stanton, managing editor of the Chicago Daily News. “But it appears to be just a little too formalized.” Said a high-ranking editor of the New York Times: “If the National Observer is worth 25¢, the Sunday Times is worth $2.50. I expect the second issue will be a lot different; they’ll try to change it while they still have time.”