The Heir Apparent

Entering the crowded city room, the first desk a visitor runs into is that of a crew-cut young man in shirtsleeves, who looks like a cub reporter fresh from journalism school. The young man is, in fact, William Pettus Hobby Jr., 28, who last week was named managing editor of the powerful Houston Post, which is owned and run by his parents, Texas' former Governor William P. Hobby, 82, the Post's ailing board chairman, and Oveta Culp Hobby, 55, first U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, the Post's president and editor.

Bill Hobby Jr. takes over a healthy paper. Daily circulation figures of 215,063 put the morning Post comfortably ahead of its chief local rival, the afternoon Houston Chronicle, and its Sunday circulation is the biggest in Texas. Editorially, the Post's blanket news coverage and lively writing have made it the equal of any paper in the Southwest. But Bill Hobby is taking command of a paper made outstanding by others-- who have left.

The Caretakers. Much of the credit for the Post's present dominance goes to former Executive Editor Arthur Laro and former Managing Editor Jack Donahue. Laro took over the dull and stodgy Post--which then trailed Jesse Jones's Chronicle in circulation--in 1947, was given a relatively free hand by Mrs. Hobby. He livened the layout, raided the rival Houston Press for top talent, strengthened the Post's coverage of both state and national news. In 1958 he hired Donahue, whose aim was simple: "The Post already had the intellectuals; we wanted to go out and get the rest."

To get the rest, Donahue sometimes indulged in cornball stunts. He started a Sunday series on unsolved crimes, offered $5,000 rewards to readers coming up with solutions. When Donahue asked Mrs. Hobby's approval of the crime series, she replied: "It has an aura of the common about it. Cloak it with a mantle of decency." Recalls Donahue: "I started each piece out with a quotation about public service--J. Edgar Hoover or something--then shot the works."

But both Laro and Donahue realized that they were only the Post's caretakers until Heir Apparent Bill Hobby came of executive age. Shortly before the changeover, Laro quit the Post to join the Los Angeles Mirror-News as executive editor; last week Donahue followed, was hired as the Mirror-News's assistant managing editor. Nearly a dozen other Post staffers have indicated that they might hit the trail to California too. To reassure the staff about its new boss, young Hobby stuck this sentence into the Post's news story of the change: "Former Governor William P. Hobby became managing editor in 1905 at the age of 26. His son is 28."

Keep It Quiet. Though critics who praise the Post's news coverage often complain about the placidity of its editorial page, the Post supported the Supreme Court's desegregation decision, condemned Orval Faubus' stand in Little Rock. The Post's attitude is that it is best to do things quietly, reflecting its motto: "Let facts be submitted to a candid world." Says Mrs. Hobby: "State lines, national lines, rivers and oceans are no more than markings on a map. We want to give our readers the opportunity to know more about national and international problems and how interdependent Houston is on them." With such guidance, Managing Editor Bill Hobby is likely to continue putting out one of the Southwest's better newspapers.

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