Clouded Mirror

The Los Angeles Times is not in the habit of running to the public for advice on how to run a newspaper. But last week, in an eye-stopping half-page ad, the Times confessed to doing just that. It was taking the public's "advice"--as expressed in numerous complaints--on how to improve its eight-week-old offspring, the tabloid Mirror.

The Times was scared; it had a sick child on its hands. For the first few days of its life, the highly ballyhooed Mirror had run off 500,000 copies a day. But as its curiosity appeal wore off, circulation had plummeted below the 100,000 guaranteed to advertisers. Last week the Mirror even refused to tell the admen how much circulation they were buying. Estimates were somewhere between 75,000 and 35,000.

Worried Times Publisher Norman Chandler had already hustled his brother Philip over to the Mirror as general manager, though Virgil Pinkley was still publisher. A week ago Chandler enlisted Times City Editor Hugh Lewis to prescribe a tonic for the Mirror.

This week the baby's formula was changed. The Mirror's sideways front page (TIME, Oct. 18) was turned right side up. The bad printing, which had also helped make the paper hard to read, was improved. Flamboyant Florabel Muir, Hollywood correspondent for the New York Daily News and writer for Variety, joined the staff of the Mirror as a part-time columnist.

Such changes were unlikely to be enough: the Mirror was still printing too little news, and too many women's features. Its pictures were still mediocre. The Chandlers had still not found the special technique and the excited state of mind that tabloid journalism requires.

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