A Place of Its Own

"Now there's a new way to edit a serious morning paper,'' proclaimed the New York Herald Tribune in full-page ads last week. To make its point, the Trib reproduced a recent front page, the novelty of which had been carefully ringed by an editor's soft black pencil (see cut). The page included a two-column-wide replay of the day's news, entitled "In the News This Morning," plus a double-barreled report on the Congo: side by side appeared two versions of Congolese developments, one headed "The Problem " the other "The Solution."

"Every day," explained the Trib ad in a message below its self-portrait, "chain-reactive events are put into perspective, complex news is organized for understanding. Proof that there can be more to a serious newspaper than great, grey columns of unevaluated news."

What the ad was also designed to demonstrate was that the New York Herald Tribune is emphatically succeeding in its effort to avoid looking, sounding or acting like the only other serious morning paper in Manhattan's field of four, the Times. Under a new editor, former Newsweek Editor John Denson, and backed by the drive and millions of John Hay Whitney, former U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, the Trib is steering a bold matutinal course. In a city that has more morning papers than it needs or wants, the Trib is trying to find a place all its own. Since last year, it has already boosted daily sales by 19,000 to 355,898.

The earnest effort to revamp the Trib has also included a refurbishing of the Sunday edition. Comics have been switched from four-color to black and white, and tucked deep inside; Peanuts now runs second to front-page news. The short-lived tabloid "Lively Arts" section has been returned to full size; book reviews are once more printed as a separate section. Lively makeup and lavish use of pictures lighten the "Forum" section, which reviews the week's news. All this has yet to boost Sunday circulation, but the Trib's television ads make a virtue of leanness and gibe at the hefty Times in the same phrase: the Trib, they say, "is portable."

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