Goodbye Dolly, Hello Rupert

Rupert Murdoch, 45, the Australian-born press buccaneer, first met Dorothy Schiff, 73, the coquettish editor in chief and publisher of the New York Post, one afternoon about six years ago. "I rang her up, as fellow publishers tend to do," he recalls, "told her I was in town and would like to have a look at her plant." It was love at first sight. "I lusted after the Post," he says. So had many others. The oldest continuously published daily in the U.S., the Post (circ. 500,000) has been the only afternoon paper in the nation's largest city since 1967--but Dolly Schiff had failed to make the most of it, editorially or financially. Last week Murdoch plucked the unripened plum. He waltzed Dolly into an agreement in principle to sell him the Post for a sum neither would disclose but which industry insiders estimated to be about $30 million.

The move stunned New York's other dailies. "It hit us like a ton of bricks," said a top editor of the News, which has been considering an afternoon paper of its own. Said A.M. Rosenthal, managing editor of the Times, which also eyed the afternoon field nine years ago: "I wouldn't want to say a word about it. We'll have to see." Even at the Post, where the staffs only small clue to Schiff's intentions might have been her request last month to see clippings on Murdoch, the announcement came as a surprise. Schiff's editors were not even tipped in time to break the news in her own paper. Said Village Voice Senior Editor Jack Newfield, himself a former Postman: "As usual, the paper was scooped by everybody."

The Post has not always been undistinguished. Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, it has been edited by some of the great names in American letters: William Cullen Bryant, E.L. Godkin, Carl Schurz. Schiff, who was born into a prominent Manhattan banking family, bought the money-losing Post in 1939 for her second husband, George Backer. They were later divorced, and she eventually assumed near-dictatorial control of the paper. Aided by a generally liberal editorial line, the Post survived as other New York dailies died one by one.

But its own turn may have been coming. Obsessed with features and columnists, Schiff gave increasingly short shrift to news coverage. Her tightfistedness with the Post editorial budget extended to approving all out-of-town trips for reporters. Despite the paper's midday monopoly, circulation and advertising began to dwindle, and the paper has been barely making a profit.

Schiff has dangled the paper before a long procession of prospective buyers. Among them: Eleanor Roosevelt, Thread Heir and Nation Editor Blair Clark, Post Editorial Page Editor James Wechsler, New York Magazine Editor Clay Felker. "It's her way of flirting," says Felker. This year she became serious. Among the possible reasons: the specter of afternoon competition from the News--or from Murdoch, who had been telling associates he might launch his own New York daily if he could not get the Post; Schiff's conclusion that her daughter, Post Assistant Publisher Adele Hall Sweet, would never fill her slippers; recent tax-law changes, effective Dec. 31, that would reduce the value of the paper to her estate; and a recent communique from Publisher Samuel I. Newhouse that he was not interested in the Post, which faces sensitive labor negotiations next year, at any price.

Selling the Farm. Still, why sell to an Australian instead of seeking other American prospects? Some Schiff associates speculate that Murdoch's publishing success and personal vigor remind her of the late Lord Beaverbrook, her fond mentor. But unlike Beaverbrook, who used his newspapers to influence British politics, Murdoch is out to make merry and money. The son of a prominent Australian journalist, Sir Keith Murdoch, Oxford-educated Rupert inherited a lackluster Adelaide daily in 1952 and parlayed it into an empire on three continents that today includes 87 newspapers, eleven magazines, seven broadcast stations, and an airline service. Publicity-shy but grimly determined, Murdoch recently sold his farm outside London to allow more time for newspapering.

Three years ago Murdoch moved his headquarters to Manhattan, took a Fifth Avenue duplex, and enrolled his three children in local private schools. Clay Felker brought Schiff and Murdoch back together again at his home and, over lunch last September, Murdoch made her an offer. "I won't say how much," he says, "but we didn't get around to it until after coffee."

Schiff may have had some misgivings about Murdoch. He is a leading practitioner of what Fleet Street calls the "tits and bums" school of journalism; his London tabloids, the News of the World and the Sun (combined circ. 9 million), celebrate crime and cheesecake. In the U.S., Murdoch's three-year-old national Star (circ. 1.3 million) is a gaudy but not particularly profitable cousin of the mindless National Enquirer, and his San Antonio Express and News (combined circ. 156,000) is even worse (sample scoops: UNCLE TORTURES TOTS WITH HOT FORK, HANDLESS BODY FOUND, GIRLS STREAK AT GUNPOINT). Yet Murdoch also publishes Australia's only national daily, The Australian, which at least aspires to quality, and he is currently bidding to buy the respected London Observer.

Murdoch convinced Schiff that he would retain the paper's liberal editorial stance, as well as that policy's principal architect, James Wechsler. Post employees last week were generally optimistic about Murdoch. "He can't make the paper any worse," said one reporter. "It has to get better." The staff also hopes that Murdoch will be willing to spend the vast sums necessary to automate the Post's outdated production system (a task that would probably involve buying off the paper's tough unions), expand the paper's weak suburban distribution and fatten the editorial budget.

Schiff, who under the purchase agreement will remain as a consultant for five years, is thinking about writing a column for the paper but otherwise will not discuss her plans. Murdoch is vague about his, but promises no earthquakes. "I don't plan any major changes in the character of the paper," he told TIME. "Newspapers must live for the particular community they serve. I publish the Sun in London for London. I would never do something like that in New York. We plan to widen and strengthen the Post, and to add to the editorial staff. But our first job is to make the paper viable. I wouldn't be buying the Post if I didn't think I could do it."

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