The Press: Mid-Week Pictorial

In the throbbing, shell-shocked September of 1914 the conscientious New York Times issued a Mid-Week Pictorial War Extra to carry the overflow of photographs from its Sunday rotogravure section. After the War, this Wednesday photographic supplement was continued, called Mid-Week Pictorial. Though edited and circulated separately, Mid-Week Pictorial had Times prestige, Times professional standards in its making. However, the big paper never did much to promote its small offspring, and top Pictorial circulation, in 1925, was only 65,278. Last week the Times’s President Arthur Hays Sulzberger finally cut Mid-Week Pictorial adrift, but not without seeing that its control was to fall into able hands. It was announced that Mid-Week Pictorial had been sold to sleek, shrewd Monte Bourjaily, who last week resigned as general manager of the (United Press) United Features Syndicate.

Disclaiming any backers, Syria-born Mr. Bourjaily told the trade Mid-Week Pictorial would henceforth be administered by a corporation composed of himself, his wife and lawyer. Managing Editor would be Dr. Franz Hollering, onetime editor of the Berlin B-Z am Mittag. Editorial headquarters were to be in a remodeled five-story Manhattan brownstone. Predicted Publisher Bourjaily: “Our approach will be that of a newspicture magazine supplementing the daily and Sunday paper and trying to interpret news rather than report it.”

To succeed Mr. Bourjaily at United Features, Business Manager George A. Carlin was made acting boss.