Absentees All

Twelve years ago the Miami Herald carried more advertising than any other daily newspaper in the U. S. In the intervening span the Depression has left its mark. Moses L. Annenberg's aggressive Tribune has invaded Miami and rugged, friendly Herald Publisher Frank Barker Shutts has turned 66. Nevertheless Herald money-making continued in sufficient measure so that Akron, Ohio Beacon-Journal Publisher John Shively Knight was politely rebuffed in July when he asked if the Herald was for sale.

Publisher Knight persisted in his effort to buy the Herald because he likes Miami and needs something more absorbing than golf to keep him busy during his winters there. Publisher Shutts likes Pittsfield, Mass., where he has a summer home. Last week, returning to Miami from Pittsfield, he admitted he needed a respite, concluded a $2,500,000 deal with Ohio's Knight whereby Publisher Shutts retains a minority of Herald preferred stock, relinquishes control to Publisher Knight & associates.

Serving only on the Herald board, Frank Shutts will have more time for his legal firm, Shutts & Bowen, one of the largest in the South. At 40, Mr. Shutts had settled down in Aurora, Ind. as lawyer and weekly paper publisher, a "leading citizen" in a quiet Ohio river town. His life took an unexpected twist when the bankrupt Miami News-Record imported

Lawyer Shutts as receiver in 1910. Forthwith he liquidated the paper, built upon its ruins the hardy Herald. Like Publisher Knight a successful practitioner of absentee ownership, Publisher Shutts soon had gathered on the side a rich law practice, shortly found himself a rough & ready millionaire of whom 0. O. Mclntyre delighted to write: "A visiting Duchess once asked him his favorite dish and he replied it was the Ohio River mud catfish."

Less colorful than Publisher Shutts, 43-year-old John Knight has made his personality felt through life-long knowledge of editorial practices which click. His father, onetime Representative Charles Landon Knight, left the editorship of the Woman's Home Companion in 1903 to become part-owner of the Akron Beacon-Journal. During vacations from Akron public schools, John Knight served tedious apprenticeships in the mechanical and business departments of his father's paper. Son John was given the managing editorship in 1924, made publisher in 1928. In 1927 John Knight bought the Massillon, Ohio, Independent, is still its president.

Last week's Herald deal puts Miami's sharp newspaper competition completely under remote control. Ohio's ex-Governor James Middleton Cox owns the Miami News but lives in Dayton where he publishes the Dayton News; Tribune Owner Annenberg has his home in Philadelphia to be near his Inquirer.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.