The Press: Editor v. Publisher

As publisher of both the morning Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal (circ. 49,048) and the afternoon Twin City Sentinel (circ. 33,205), Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray has a newspaper monopoly—and it worries him. Back in 1937 when he was 29 and a millionaire tobacco heir, Gray and a syndicate of big businessmen wanted to start a newspaper to compete with the Journal and Sentinel monopoly. He ended up buying the two papers for more than $1,000,000 when the owner threw in the towel. Gray still wishes Winston-Salem (pop. 90,000) could afford two independent papers because “monopoly journalism is inherently bad . . . It is a lot easier to run a newspaper if you are not the sole trustee of the printed word.”

As the sole trustee, Gray sometimes takes extraordinary measures to insure something of the free discussion that competing newspapers would bring to Winston-Salem. A moderate drinker himself, Gray favors the legalization of liquor sales in dry Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Santford Martin, 63, the Journal’s tall, pink-cheeked editor, is a lifelong teetotaler and editorial crusader for prohibition. Last June, when the county decided to vote on whether to repeal prohibition, wet Publisher Gray and dry Editor Martin found themselves at odds about Journal policy. Gray decided to run pro-repeal editorials (by associate editors) in both papers, give Martin a chance to answer with signed prohibitionist editorials in the Journal.

Coffin Tacks. At least twice before.

Gray has insisted on widening discussion beyond his own views. Once a headline in one of the Gray papers called cigarettes “coffin tacks.” That angered Publisher Gray’s Uncle James, who is chairman of the board of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Camels) and second largest stockholder in the newspapers. Uncle James demanded that the managing editor be fired, but Publisher Gray refused. Last month, in a bitter dispute between a doctor and nurses at the county hospital, the county commissioners—led by a director of the Gray newspapers—sided with the doctor; the editors, again with Gray’s approval, gave the nurses’ side of the story.

Convictions. This summer, for 2½ months, Publisher Gray and Editor Martin fought out the battle of the bottle on the Journal editorial page, though in the news columns, both newspapers played up stories favoring repeal. The mayor backed Gray; the churches lined up behind Martin.

Last week, as the “great debate” came to a close, Editor Martin summed up: “For reasons of conscience, principle and conviction, I have been unable to follow the policy of the [owners]. I am sure [they] acted also for the same reasons.” In record numbers, the voters of Forsyth County registered their choice: For Editor Martin and prohibition: 15,734; for Publisher Gray and repeal: 12,025.