Glad to Be Back

OH. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING. CEroled the Herald Tribune. "New York's ALIVE again," said the Mirror. In a paean to the sweet scent of printer's ink. Hearst Columnist Bob Considine cooed:

"The Mirror smelled absolutely delicious. If possible, the Journal-American smells deliciouser."

However they smelled. Manhattan's papers returned last week after their 114-day blackout with a solid, 6,500,000-copy thwack!--720,000 above their prestrike circulation. And they went fast, although newsdealers later bundled up and returned thousands on thousands of copies. Exulted Mirror Managing Editor Selig Adler: "We sold more papers than when Marilyn Monroe died."

Forget the Whatchamacallit. Curiosity helped; so did Barnum. Publicity-starved actors and actresses happily posed with their "favorite" papers. Atop the News Building bosomy starlets let loose hundreds of scarlet balloons with coupons offering 30-day free subscriptions. Trib ads trumpeted: "People who switch to the Herald Tribune soon forget all about the New York whatchamacallit." Low-key as ever. Times ads merely asked, "What has the New York Times got that other newspapers haven't got?" The reply: ''Interesting" readers.

On inside pages, the newspapers' radio-TV critics did some outspoken promotion of their own. "Those interim dailies and the broadcasters made Gargantuan efforts to fill the void," wrote the News's Ben Gross, "but both were pale shadows of the real thing." Said the Journal's acerbic Jack O'Brian: "They had it all to themselves . . . and they blew it." To the Telegram's Richard Starnes. all the substitutes were "practically worthless to a hungry man."

No Gimmicks? To feed the hunger, the papers apparently decided that the best diet was the mixture as before. The News, with the biggest circulation in the U.S. (2,055,266), and the Times, with the biggest reputation, stuck with proven recipes. The others promised major changes that turned out. at best, to be bits of fancy garnishing.

The Trib announced that it had spent its enforced vacation planning "many major innovations and improvements"--but none were immediately evident. The afternoon papers, locked in a visceral battle for circulation, pulled out all the stops. BIG SURPRISE PACKAGE FOR YOU!, Said the Journal, in a crimson bannerline, and it took three full-page ads just to tell readers what the surprise was: lots more of the same--a new cash giveaway game, a serialized version of Fall-Safe, and a promise of articles by nearly everyone from Adlai Stevenson to William F. Buck ley Jr. Even French Novelist Andre Maurois turned up with a sort of Gallicized "Dear Abby" column of "advice to wom en on marriage, love and how to face life's problems."

With an alarmed eye on the Journal, whose prestrike circulation of 601,625 paced the afternoon field, the Telegram (442,936) piously proclaimed that it would offer "no gimmicks," then promptly announced an armful: a new contest, a new "space-age" comic strip, a dog column "that interprets barks with a bite." The Post, which had more than doubled its circulation to 750,000 by returning to print three weeks before the others, made little effort to match its rivals' fancy footwork and slipped quietly back to third in the three-paper P.M. race.

Nothing, Retroactively. Two men emerged from the strike with their reputations somewhat brightened: New York's Mayor Wagner and veteran Labor Arbitrator Theodore E. Kheel. The goats were more numerous, but in a well-documented. 20,000-word postmortem. Times Labor Reporter A. H. Raskin narrowed the field to the two chief negotiators: Printers Union Leader Bert Powers and Times Vice President Amory H. Bradford.

Powers, according to one source quoted by Raskin, was "so superior to anyone he had to negotiate against that it was like matching Sonny Listen with a Golden Gloves champion." but he was also "cold, ambitious" and unpredictable. Raskin pulled no punches with his own front office: "One top-level mediator said Mr. Bradford brought an attitude of such icy disdain into the conference room that the mediator often felt he ought to ask the hotel to send up more heat." The publishers' attitude, Raskin quoted one observer as complaining, was always "Give 'em nothing--and do it retroactively."

Unless the pattern is to be repeated all over when the new contracts expire on April 1. 1965. it is obvious that something must be done to overhaul bargaining techniques. But for the time being, the publishers are far less worried about what might happen two years from now than about what their circulation will be to morrow. And they have cause for concern. Even without the normal attrition in readership caused by a lengthy strike, the Times and Trib figure to suffer some losses as a result of their new 10-c- prices. When Manhattan's afternoon papers went to a dime in 1957. circulation dropped 20%, and after six years has barely managed to climb back.

Publishers also fear that some readers might kick the newspaper habit once they have been off it long enough--particularly commuters who have grown used to picking up magazines and paperbacks or taking home work from the office. Given the parlous financial condition of at least three Manhattan dailies, such penalties could prove too much to bear, and the long-predicted "shakeout" among New York's newspapers could come fairly soon.

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