Press: Tabloid Tussle

A hush spread along the bar of Jack Bleeck’s saloon, adjoining the New York Herald Tribune. Lounging newshawks put down their highball glasses, stared incredulously at their boss. He was obliged to repeat himself.

“It’s true,” said he. “Sure, I’m serious. I told the Reids last week, and tomorrow I’ll be at the Mirror.”

Thus last week Stanley Walker, 36, most famed city editor in the land (TIME, Oct. 22), broke the news that he was going to work for William Randolph Hearst as managing editor of the gaudy tabloid Daily Mirror. To practically all of the Herald Tribune’s staff it was a disruptive shock. Stanley Walker had built up the ablest staff of newswriters in the city. They, in turn, fairly idolized him. More than one actually wept into his beer at the prospect of a city room without City Editor Walker. That loyalty was a contributing factor in Stanley Walker’s decision to quit. He had never been able to get the Herald Tribune to pay his bright, hard-working young men what he knew they were worth. But his prime reasons for joining the Mirror, said he, were “fun and money.” His Herald Tribune salary, around $10,000, was doubled by Publisher Hearst, with a three-year contract, terminable at the end of one year by Mr. Walker.

The fun began next day when Managing Editor Walker at the Mirror began to receive congratulations. First box of cigars came from Lucius Morris Beebe, dandified columnist on the Herald Tribune. Second came from Edward Pierce Mulrooney, onetime New York City Police Commissioner, now chairman of the State Liquor Control Board. A wry telegram from Reporter Forrest Davis read: CONGRATULATIONS STOP GLAD TO SEE YOU ARE AT LAST UP TO YOUR LEVEL.

Stanley Walker had to take many a jibe for his step down in the journalistic scale. Said he defensively: “I don’t know anything about this picture-paper business, and it’s time I learned. It’s a faster game than I’ve ever been in, and I’m going to lose a whole flock of inhibitons. If some ideas I have should work out, this will be the goddamndest paper you ever saw.”

Managing Editor Walker will doubtless be given a chance to try his ideas. He was hired by Arthur Brisbane, whom Publisher Hearst put in charge of the ailing Mirror two months ago (TIME, Nov. 26). Already wise old Editor Brisbane had begun to tinker with the paper. He wheedled other publishers into voting for the Mirror’s admittance to City News Association, the press service that covers Manhattan and The Bronx for its members. Consistently blackballed from membership, the Mirror had suffered badly in local coverage. Everything was set for the Mirror’s election at last week’s meeting of City News until the World-Telegram delegate failed to appear. Lacking that affirmative vote, the “Noes” of the Associated Press and of the Mirror’s arch-competitor Dally News were enough to keep the Mirror out.

Working under General Director Brisbane, Stanley Walker is flanked by Editor Emile Gauvreau and City Editor George Clarke, whom he discovered to be the “fastest city editor in town.” Their job will be to make New Yorkers read the Mirror’s news instead of only scanning Walter Winchell’s gossip column. Thus they hope to whittle away some of the huge circulation lead held by the Patterson-McCormick News (Mirror: approximately 600,000; News: 1,600,000). The Mirror’s handicap is serious. Compared to the rich News, it has little money to work with. A.P.’s Wirephoto service gives the News a tremendous advantage (TIME, Jan. 14). Stanley Walker’s hope: ”We’ll have to battle them with speed and ingenuity. They’re just successful enough over at the News to be getting fat and slow.”