Newspapers: New Daily for New York

Editor Frank Conniff propped his feet on his desk and took command of a city room that had been painfully silent for months. Word was out that the New York newspaper strike was over at last. The pressmen, last of the squabbling unions to make peace, had finally settled; the stereotypers were scheduled to vote approval of their contract at week’s end. The long-deferred New York World Journal Tribune was actually getting ready to put out a newspaper, and Conniff’s phone rang constantly. Columnist after columnist wanted to ask his new boss for the honor of appearing in the first issue.

Conniff handled his callers with the good humor, occasional exasperation and unflagging optimism of a man delighted to be back on the job. The new paper, he conceded, would combine most of the features of the three papers it absorbed: the Herald Tribune, the World-Telegram, the Journal-American. “We’re not going to emulate any one of them,” said Conniff, as he planned for an eight-column layout with abundant white space on weekdays, a six-column page on Sundays. “This paper will look like itself.”

Overabundant Columnists. By no accident, it will look like all three of its predecessors. It will be broken into four sections, and in makeup and type, Page 1 of the first section will be reminiscent of the Telegram. The first page of the second section will have a calculated familiarity for old Trib readers, as it gives prominence to Columnists Dick Schaap, Art Buchwald and Jimmy Breslin. Pages 2 and 3 of the second section will contain the editorials and a constantly changing panorama of other columnists—for all the world like the departed Journal-American.

His biggest problem promises to be too many columnists. All three of the old dailies had picked up the habit of accumulating columnists, and last week Conniff faced the task of finding space for Pundits Walter Lippmann, Joseph Alsop, Rowland Evans, Robert Novak, Henry J. Taylor, William F. Buckley Jr., William S. White, Bob Considine and Jim Bishop. For sports, there were Red Smith, Bill Slocum and Jimmy Cannon. And then, besides Buchwald and Schaap, there were Walter Winchell, Harriet Van Home, John McClain, Frank Farrell.

To be sure, at the urging of New York Post Publisher Dorothy Schiff, the Justice Department has demanded that some of the syndicated columnists who appeared in the now-defunct Herald Tribune be put on the New York market for competitive bidding. Which means that Mrs. Schiff will have the opportunity to try for Lippmann, Alsop, Buchwald, Evans and Novak. Which columnists she wants, she has not said. “I don’t know how the hell she can outbid us unless we get a little complacent,” says Conniff.

Solid, Seasoned Staff. Finding space for the columnists is one thing; filling the news hole is something else again. During the long strike, some of the Trib’s best reporters found other work. The American Newspaper Guild’s demand for strict seniority forced Conniff to dump some promising youngsters and keep some tired old hands. “We have a solid, seasoned staff,” he says when what he means is that the paper is stuck with 40 reporters who are 60 or older. In the confusion of matching personnel demands, Conniff ended up with six more copyreaders than he needs, while he is short three rewrite men. With a paper that will have no bureaus in the U.S. or abroad, Conniff and Managing Editor Paul Schoenstein are counting heavily on the wire services and the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post news service, “with all their good writers.”

The World Journal Tribune will be strong in its feature departments, largely because of the people pulled in from the Trib. Only in the drama section is Conniff still floundering. The New York Times got the Trib’s Walter Kerr, and the W.J.T. is still searching for a critic. The job was offered to Judith Crist, who turned it down in favor of films. “That’s where the action is,” she says. “The snob appeal of theater reviewing is lost on me.” The Trib’s Eugenia Sheppard will edit the woman’s page; her staff will boast Hearst’s wry society columnist, Suzy Knickerbocker.

Conniff himself will edit the editorial page. “We will have editorial writers from all three papers, and if anything goes sour, I’m to blame.” Under an unusual arrangement, any of the three publishers—Bill Hearst, Jack Howard, Jock Whitney—will be given space to reply if they disagree with an editorial. “It should make for a pretty lively page,” says Conniff. Leslie Gould from the Journal-American will boss the financial page; Maurice Dolbier from the Trib and John Barkham from the Saturday Review will review books; the Trib’s Walter Terry, dance; John Gruen and Emily Genauer, art; Miles Kastendieck, William Bender and Alan Rich, music. The Sunday paper, too, will carry features from the Trib: New York magazine, edited by Clay Felker; and Book Week, under Theodore Solotaroff.

An Ear for the Town. All sales will be from newsstands; there will be no home delivery. Which means that headlines will have to catch the eye of the rushing subway rider and home-bound commuter. But Conniff is confident that he will be able to keep stories from being played out of proportion to what they are worth. After all, his only direct competition will come from the Post, with its predictable liberal approach to any issue. The Post, says Conniff, should serve “to keep us from getting stuffy. But hell, last week the Post had two—TWO—editorials on U Thant. Tell me, is U Thant what people are talking about over their cocktails?”

He will, he admits, keep an eye on the Times too. “It discovered the feature story recently. It discovered pictures, it discovered nightclubs, it discovered amusements. That’s our stuff. The Journal-American in its better days had an ear for what was going on, being talked about in this town.”

Aware that strikes drain away readers who never return, Conniff doubts that the circulation of his paper will get close to the combined total of the three merged dailies. He projects a 650,000 circulation for the daily paper, 750,000 for the Sunday. And he hopes that the figures will rise as the World Journal

Tribune, which intends to focus almost exclusively on New York, learns how to please New Yorkers. “This is a lively city,” says Conniff. “I hope that some of the beat and rhythmic style of the city gets into our paper.”