Exit Boom-Boom

For several of the reasons that make it a lively newspaper, the neat, tight Chicago Sun-Times (circ. 588,181) loses more capable newsmen than any other Chicago daily. One reason is that the Sun-Times diligently recruits promising staffers, pushes them ahead--and loses many to bigger jobs elsewhere. Two more specific reasons are: brilliant, blustery Executive Editor Milburn ("Pete") Akers, 57, as famed for his highhandedness in a rage as for his openhandedness with a raise or bonus; and big (6 ft. i in., 250 Ibs.), bluff Managing Editor Thomas F. (for Fox) Reynolds, 46, whose barracks-square bellow has earned him the nickname of "Boom-Boom."

Alarmed by newsroom turnover, ailing Publisher Marshall Field Jr. last February moved able Pete Akers upstairs to a seventh-floor executive suite. Into the fourth-floor office as assistant executive editor and working boss of the news staff went studious Larry Fanning, 43, onetime (1941-54) managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, who has been editor of the Sun-Times syndicate since 1955. But the staffers' exodus continued. To stem it, Publisher Field, though already hard pressed for news executives, last week persuaded Tom Reynolds to quit.

Bright, hard-charging Newsman Reynolds, onetime (1938-41) White House correspondent for United Press, was hired by the late Merchant Prince Marshall Field on the recommendation of their mutual friend, Franklin Roosevelt, who once showed his affection for Reporter Reynolds by sending his wife two dozen roses on the birth of their first child. Tom Reynolds went to work for Field's still-to-rise Sun as White House correspondent in 1941, scored many newsbeats of the breathless brand that delighted his publisher. Example: eleven days after Newsman Reynolds reported for the Sun that eight submarine-borne Nazi saboteurs had been seized by the FBI in 1942,* the Chicago Tribune carried a story that added no new details of their capture. In 1949, one year after the Sun merged with the old Chicago Times, Reporter Reynolds went to Chicago as its assistant managing editor; within a year he was promoted to managing editor.

With Pete Akers and Boom-Boom Reynolds for brainstormers, the Sun-Times developed a rare knack for offbeat reportorial ventures, such as a hard-hitting and successful campaign to secure the release of a Roman Catholic priest who had been imprisoned for four years by the Chinese Communists. But Reporter Reynolds was unable to win staffers' loyalty, and showed open distaste for the way Larry Fanning and business-minded members of the Sun-Times cabinet ran the paper after ailing Publisher Field had a nervous breakdown last year. Managing Editor Reynolds turned down Field's face-saving offer of a job as "national correspondent" last week. He said instead: "I'm young--and I'm available."

*Captured within a fortnight after landing on Long Island and Florida beaches, and tried in secret by seven U.S. generals, six were executed, two were imprisoned.

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