New Direction for the Star

Along with the cash, an infusion of seasoned talent at the top

Nearly every major capital in the Western world supports half a dozen or so daily newspapers. Every capital, that is, except Washington, D.C., which boasts only two dailies and has long faced the prospect of becoming a one-newspaper town. For more than 20 years, as the jaunty, aggressive, morning Washington Post (circ. 561,640) has enlarged its share of readership and advertising, the evening Star has waned. The struggling 126-year-old Star was assured survival last March when Time Inc. bought the paper for $28 million, giving it a strong financial base. Since then Star watchers have waited to see what moves Time Inc. would make to improve the paper.

Part of the answer came last week when the Star's two top jobs were filled by seasoned executives from Time Inc. Named as editor was Murray J. Gart, 53, who since 1969 has headed the TIME-LIFE News Service with the rank of assistant managing editor of TIME. The paper's new publisher is George W. Hoyt, 42, former president of a thriving Time Inc. weekly newspaper chain, the Chicago-area Pioneer Press.

The two appointments capped a series of personnel shifts and editorial changes that began shortly after Time Inc. acquired the newspaper. Star Veteran Sidney Epstein, 57, was promoted from managing editor to executive editor. Philip Evans, 44, and Barbara Cohen, 33, became joint managing editors, in charge of production and news, respectively. Edwin Yoder Jr., 43, a Rhodes scholar, was confirmed as editor of the paper's editorial page. The TIME-LIFE News Service has been providing the Star with stories from its own worldwide network of correspondents, as well as features adapted from Time Inc.'s other magazines: SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, PEOPLE, FORTUNE and MONEY.

Joe L. Allbritton, the feisty Texas tycoon who bought the paper in 1974, pumped in millions of his own money to keep it afloat. Allbritton had planned to stay on as the Star's publisher for at least five years. However, last month he decided to leave the paper, to avoid possible conflict of interest problems over his ownership of WJLA-TV, a lucrative (estimated value: $100 million) local ABC affiliate that is up for license renewal with the FCC.

The Star had been without an editor since last November, when able James G. Bellows, 55, went to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. Bellows had begun an energetic program of editorial rebuilding, but was convinced that Allbritton's austerity moves, which had brought the paper back to near the break-even point, were blocking his efforts. Indeed, the work of both men had greatly strengthened the Star, but, says a Star staffer, "we've been rudderless since Bellows left."

Gart was a newspaper reporter and editor (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Wichita Eagle and Beacon) before joining TIME as Toronto bureau chief in 1955. As TIME'S bureau chief in Chicago from 1959 to 1964, he covered both the Kennedy-Nixon and Johnson-Goldwater national presidential campaigns. Gart reported on the overthrow of the Diem regime in Saigon in 1963 and in 1965 went on to head the newsweekly's London bureau.

Known to his colleagues as a hard-nosed and resourceful news executive, Gart takes over a daily that, for all its history of economic tribulations, is one of the nation's liveliest evening newspapers. Under Editor Bellows, the Star recruited Pat Oliphant, possibly the most acute and entertaining cartoonist since David Low. Its saucy "Ear" has become one of the most widely copied gossip columns in the U.S. Other new features include Page One "In Focus" analysis of current issues and beefed-up commentary. The Star has not been able to approach the depth and breadth of the Post's news and features, in part because its editorial staff is down to 207, vs. the Post's 432. (The Star's editorial budget is $8.6 million, vs. $20 million for the Post.)

The Star staffers who hung on through Allbritton's austerity years took pay cuts and worked Stakhanovite hours to keep the paper alive. Says Gart: "The Star people have been through an ordeal like no other newspaper staff I know. They have to be tougher, more resilient and more inventive than any other bunch in the country. That's one hell of an asset. That's what it takes to go places with a newspaper."

It takes more, of course. Thanks partly to cost cutting in the circulation and promotion departments, the Star's circulation in the last audited year (ending March 31) was down 43,236, to a low of 329,147. Ad linage also dropped, but new Publisher Hoyt is convinced that the downcurve is reversible. Time Inc. will spend some $2 million in the next year to automate production, data-processing, typesetting and mailroom equipment. Says Hoyt: "My sense of the situation, the paper and the marketplace is that all the ingredients are here for a successful operation. It will stand on its own feet."

Most Washingtonians hope so. They include Vice President Walter Mondale, who called Gart to welcome him to D.C., and Washington Post Executive Editor Ben Bradlee, whose signal went out: "Welcome to our town. It's a good newspaper town, and it's going to be better because Murray's here."

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