Slow-Motion Merger in New York

At the New York World-Telegram and Sun, morale is down in the dumps. Editor Richard Peters has gone on vacation, and staffers doubt that he will return to work. One staffer after an other has left for another job. At the Journal-American, reporters are calculating their seniority and worrying about whether they can survive a merger. The word is out that peripatetic Editor John Denson is getting ready to move once more. In the city room of the Herald Tribune, reporters long hardened to the possibility that the paper itself might not survive are beginning to nurse a new nervousness that was not eased three weeks ago, when Managing Editor Murray Weiss took off for Boston and a position as assistant to the publisher of the Herald-Traveler.

On all three papers, the reason for the unpleasant uncertainty is the same: persistent and well-founded rumors of an imminent merger between the daily World-Telegram and the Journal-American and between the Sunday Trib and the Sunday Journal. Last week, concern over such a consolidation was heightened by reports on TV and radio, and in the Wall Street Journal. Some commentators even suggested that the final plans had been sent to Washington for Justice Department approval. They had not. The precise date of the slow-motion merger, which has been in the works for three years, remains a mystery. But its eventual consummation seems inevitable.

Sunday Polyglot. "Jock Whitney is in the Bahamas," said a Hearst spokesman. "Bill Hearst is in Florida, and he's going to San Francisco from there. I don't think there would be a merger without those two around, do you?" Probably not, but all indications are that Whitney, Hearst and the World-Telegram's Jack Howard have finally got down to business and hammered out agreement on issues from staff to space allotment. Hearst's Frank Conniff is slated to be editor of the afternoon paper; two-thirds of the present Journal-Telegram staffs will be kept. The paper will be printed on the Telegram's 35-year-old presses, which are only slightly less obsolete than the Journal's. The polyglot Sunday Tribune-Journal (or whatever its name is to be) will be printed on both Trib and Journal presses.

In New York, says Herald Tribune President Walter Thayer, "three papers are losing a great deal of money." He means the Trib, Telegram and Journal. A combination of television, strong suburban dailies and crippling strikes has drained those papers of readers and advertisers. Circulation of the WorldTelegram has dropped from 448,828 in 1960 to 389,291 today; in the same period, Journal-American circulation slipped from 618,802 to 535,310. The Sunday Trib (circ. 360,876), though it has been praised for its sprightliness, has been unable to make much headway against the powerful Sunday Times, with its impressive circulation of 1,337,-277. Last year the three papers lost a combined $12 million; this year they stand to lose $15 million.

No Hesitation. For all the need of some kind of consolidation, however, the papers have been slow to get around to it. For one thing, they have been wary of the U.S. Justice Department, which carefully scrutinizes newspaper consolidations. But Justice, which asks that it be notified of a New York merger ten days ahead of time, says it will not object if the papers can show they are definitely losing money. Another roadblock is the unions-the typographers led by Bert Powers and Tom Murphy's Newspaper Guild. If the papers eliminate too many jobs or fail to offer sufficient compensation to dismissed employees, neither union would hesitate to strike.

Above all, the publishers are proud of putting out newspapers in the nation's largest city and reluctant to see them disappear. They want to hang on to their personal platform in New York. One story has it that William Randolph Hearst Jr. has been holding up negotiations by demanding that the new paper run his personal column. "Oddly enough," says a top executive involved in the negotiations, "the biggest obstacle to merger is the personalities and pride of the very top men. It's a question of who wants to give up his Yo-Yo."

In the Hands of Zen. Even when a merger is arranged, success is by no means assured. The new afternoon paper will still face competition from the New York Post, which by cutting down on its news coverage has managed to stay in the black. Hearst and Scripps-Howard expect their new paper to maintain the combined circulation of the existing two papers; yet these papers appeal to two distinct sets of readers. The Telegram is aimed at the commuter from the well-to-do suburbs; the more obstreperous Journal-American, with its line-up of combative columnists, is directed primarily at city dwellers. The Sunday Tribune, with its emphasis on arts and fashions, appeals to the city's smart set, and may have a difficult time accommodating the earthier features of the Journal.

While they wait for news of their fate, staffers at all three papers are trying to be stoics. After ten years of hearing of dire change at their paper, Trib employees are perhaps the least ruffled. "As long as we have Whitney's money, we're all right," says one Trib man. Even at the Telegram, where a reporter was recently bawled out for charging 800 on his expense account for 600 worth of subway trips, some reporters are beginning to roll with the rumors. "I tend to let Zen take care of it," said a young Telegram reporter. "It has so far. When I started here, they were talking merger, and they still are. It's like predicting the end of the world. When it comes, it comes."

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