Snap the Whip

When Meier & Frank, the biggest department store (and the biggest advertiser) in Portland, Ore., was charged with unfair labor practices last fall, neither the morning Portland Oregonian (circ. 214,916) nor the rival evening Oregon Journal (circ. 190,844) covered the story. Both papers privately said that it was merely an oversight, that they would report the National Labor Relations Board's final decision in the case in full (TIME, Oct. 31).

Fortnight ago, when the NLRB ruled on the charges against Meier & Frank, both the Oregonian and the Journal printed the news. The Oregonian gave an eminently fair report of the issues and rulings in the case, covering both the charges of which M & F was found innocent and those on which it was found guilty. The Journal also touched all the bases, but its report was briefer, less prominently displayed, and kinder to the store.

After the stories appeared, the store canceled 14 pages of ads in the Oregonian, cut down the paper's daily share of the M & F advertising budget to one page, while continuing to take as many as four or five in the Journal. To the Oregonian, that meant a loss of an estimated $8,000 a week, and it began to lay off printers.

Breaking the story in the nearby Salem Oregon Statesman (circ. 15,798), Republican ex-Governor Charles A. Sprague last week charged M & F with trying to dictate the editorial policies of the press. He also pointed a moral: "Accusations of newspaper subservience to advertisers have been freely made in late years, particularly by left-wingers [and] New Dealers ... An incident like this plays right into [their] hands . . ."

At week's end, M & F's President Aaron Frank had still not relented, and the Oregonian (which lost its M & F ads once before when it opposed Julius Meier for governor) was not backing down either. Though it was beginning to feel the financial pinch, the 100-year-old paper defied M & F in a Page One editorial : "As a matter of traditional policy, the Oregonian strives to report the news completely, impartially and without fear or favor. The Oregonian will continue to do so."

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