The Press: Yankee in Dixie

When Thomas Lambard Robinson got out of the Navy ten years ago, he had a secondhand Dodge, $20,000 in savings and a burning ambition to own a daily newspaper. On a tour of the U.S. looking for a likely buy, he decided on the Charlotte (N.C.) News, which then had a circulation of 53,837 and was the largest afternoon daily in the Carolinas. The price was high, upwards of $1,000,000.

But Tom Robinson was sure that, on his record, he could get the backing.

After graduating from Harvard (’30), he worked as a reporter and adman for the New York Times and Syracuse Post-Standard, did public relations (forthe Panama Canal), ran the Casa Grande (Ariz.) weekly Dispatch for two years before joining the Navy, then sold it at war’s end. With his own $20,000, a borrowed $55,000, and an option to buy the News in his pocket, Tom Robinson persuaded such well-heeled Carolinians as former Army Secretary Gordon Gray and Robert M. and James G. Hanes, operators of one of the state’s biggest textile mills, to put up about $450,000 to form the Charlotte News Publishing Co. With this backing, the new company borrowed another $1,000,000 from Carolina banking and insurance interests, took over the paper in January 1947.

Pep & Palmolive. The News had a long way to go to challenge its prosperous but stodgy rival, the Observer (circ. 137,693). Robinson and his editors pepped up the paper’s reporting and writing, cleaned up its typography, expanded the sports section, ran more pictures. On the editorial page, Robinson jumped into fights with both feet, soon made a reputation throughout the South as a strong voice. Despite local drys, the News fought for legalized liquor and thus helped run 400 bootleggers out of business the News ripped the hide off Race-Baiter Bryant Bowles when he spoke in Charlotte. In four years, the News won three first prizes for editorials from the North Carolina Press Association.Publisher Robinson rattled around Charlotte in his battered old Dodge to speak to citizens’ groups, hustled for ads Unce on a visit to Manhattan, he phoned Colgate-Palmolive Co. Chairman E. H Little on the pretext that he wanted to pay hls respects “to the most prominent North Carolinian in New York ” Little was so pleased that he sent his car around tor Robinson, who ended up with an ad contract from the soap company In 8½ years, the News’s circulation has risen 30% to 69,858. advertising revenues doubled, and gross yearly earnings (before taxes) increased from $900,000 to $2,200,000 enabling the paper to pay off its $1,000,000 debt.

Trouble Ahead? Then trouble loomed for Robinson. Nine months ago, Chicago Daily News Publisher John S. Knight moved into Charlotte, bought the Obverser and newsmen wondered whether Robinson wouldfight him or try to make a deal to let him take over the News, makeCharlotte a one-paper town.

Last week Tom Robinson gave his answer. He borrowed $1,000,000and brought out all of his stockholders. For them it ws a good deal:they got back more than double (before taxes) what they had invested. With complete ownership of the paper, Robinson squared off to do battle with the Knight chain. Tom Robinson professes to be unworried. Says he: “It’s very healthy for any city to have strongly competitive papers. The Knights just make my days longer.”