The Press: Empty Chest

One morning last week, 1,800 newsboys threw copies of the Los Angeles Independent on 500,000 front lawns for the last time. After a year of publishing his twice-a-week giveaway, Editor & Publisher James Parton announced that his experiment in decentralized city journalism (TIME, Jan. 24) was folding up.

With a big list of backers,* Parton had bought eight community sheets and shopping guides, then merged them into one citywide newspaper with sub-editions for each major suburb. Eventually he had hoped to convert the Independent into a daily. But advertising had come in too slowly, and Publisher Parton had stretched his financial shoestring too far and too fast. In cash and credit, he had spent $600,000. Said Parton: “Our war chest was too small.”

* Among them: Mervyn LeRoy, David Loew, Donald Douglas, Henry R. Luce, Leonard Firestone, John Hay (“Jock”) Whitney, Walter Brunmark.