THE NEW YORK SCENE AS NEWSPAPERS MERGE, MANY PROBLEMS EMERGE

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31028, 6 April 1966, Page 16

THE NEW YORK SCENE AS NEWSPAPERS MERGE, MANY PROBLEMS EMERGE

mu

A. H. RASKIN,

the ‘'New York Times.'*)

(Reprinted by arrangement) NEW YORK, April 27. Picket signs, a depressingly familiar hallmark of the New York newspaper scene, may be the welcome awaiting the planned merger of three metropolitan newspapers into a single publishing company. The three papers, rich in tradition but poor in circulation and advertising, are the “New York Herald Tribune,” owned by John Hay Whitney; Hearst’s “Journal American” and Scripps Howard’s “World-Telegram” and the “Sun.”

After a year of negotiations the three announced last week that they had completed arrangements for joint publication of one morning, one afternoon and one Sunday newspaper. The hope of the new partners, each with an equal share in the new venture was that they could be on the street with their first papers by April 11. Anti-trust Clearance

Two hurdles must be overcome if this timetable is to be met. The first is the necessity for anti-trust clearance by the Justice Department. The lavish quantities of red ink on the books of all three napers—an estimated total of 10 million dollars a year in losses—make it probable that no serious obstacle "’ill come from this source. The other hurdle will be harder to surmount. It is the necessity for working out merger arrangements with the 10 newspaper unions: otherwise, the ernoloyees will be on the street but the new papers won't. The unions have alreadj’ made it plain that the process of getting agreement will be long, probably painful and almost certainly expensive Five of the unions—the craft organisations representing printers, pressmen, mailers and drivers and the New York Newspaper Guild, which speaks for news, clerical and maintenance workers wilt send delegations to Washington on Wednesday to question whether the merger will be in the public interest. However, the unions are not putting their primary reliance on the pilgrimage to the antitrust division. Their chief concern is with working out contractual limitations on the freezing out of workers and more generous protection for those who are displaced. The three papers have declined to give any estimate of the number of employees they expect to drop through the termination of one afternoon and one i Sunday paper. Staff Reductions But the printers have; already been told that the 900 1 men now employed in the three composing rooms will be cut to 450 when a consolidated composing room is established in the plant now occupied by the “World-Tele-gram.” The drivers also have been advised to expect a 50

per cent cut in the present delivery force of 900. On this basis, union leaders expect a squeeze-out of at least 2000 jobs in combined staffs, which now number 5700. Thomas J. Murphy, executive vice president of the Newspaper Guild, notified management representatives that he was prepared to negotiate for months if necessary to get adequate protective clauses. His first demand was for a list by name and title of all tile executives and supervisors the new company planned to keep from among the 250 now exempt from union membership. “We want to see how many they plan to fire in management before we agree to any ratio on Guild displacements,” Mr Murphy said. The initial negotiations with the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers' Union did not even get that far. Its president, Joseph Baer, announced that he wanted to convene the union's full scale committee and start negotiating a brand new agreement. The publishers demurred on the ground that they already had a binding agreement. The union called a membership meeting for today to grant strike authorisation. Printers’ Concern The printers, under the leadership of Bertram A. Powers, may in the end prove the hardest to satisfy. They are concerned about the possibility that the same type for advertisments and stock tables will be used by both the new morning and afternoon newspapers, thus eliminating work for union members. Problems of this kind will become even more troublesome when the merged corporation completes plans for the ultra-modern printing plant on which it bases much of its hope for future prosperity. Under contracts signed-a year ago. all of the city’s publishers are barred from using automated equip ment in their composing rooms without specific union [clearance. A joint automation 'committee was set up, but it

has held only one seven minute meeting.

Labour-management conflict has enmeshed the New York newspapers since the 114-day blackout of 1962-63. Last year a 24-day guild strike against the “New York Times" touched off another major shut down. One heritage of these upheavals was the withdrawal of the "New York Post” and the "Herald Tribune” from the Publishers Association. Another was a permanent loss of readers and advertising that contributed to the death of Hearst's “Daily Mirror” six months after the first strike, and to the three-way merger. Once 25 Papers The ancestry of the new corporation—a synthesis of 25 once flourishing New York papers—reads like an Almanack de Gotha of publishing It welds the traditions of James Gordon Bennett. Horace Greeley, Charles A. Dana. Joseph Pulitzer. William Ran dolph Hearst. E. W. Seripps. Roy W. Howard. Whitelaw Reid and Frank Munsey, each of whom at one time or another owned some of the elements mashed into the current amalgam. A joint statement by the three partners expressed confidence that the merger “will enrich the proud traditions we have inherited,” but many observers saw in it a sign of the final fall of personal journalism. “When two old enemies like Hearst and Scripps-Howard can snuggle cozily in the same bed with the mouthpiece for liberal Republicanism, it is time to print papers with malted milk instead of printer’s ink,” commented a journalistic oldtimer.

The consolidation will leave New York with three morning papers—the “Times,” the “Herald Tribune” and the “Daily News”—and two afternoon papers—the "Post" and the new ‘World Journal.” On Sundays, the amalgamated “World Journal" and “Tribune” will complete with the “Times” and the “News."— Copyright 1966, the ‘New York Times" News Service.