Loose Links

Sunday, August 28, more than 100,000 people overran Akron's municipal airport for the annual aviation day sponsored by the Scripps-Howard Times-Press. The program was a success in spite of one embarrassing circumstance: there was no Times-Press. In its edition that morning, the Times-Press announced that it had been acquired by its competitor, John S. Knight's rich and dowdy Beacon-Journal. Akron, a lusty industrial centre of 255,000 population, was left with one daily paper.

From 26 daily newspapers in 1927, the Scripps-Howard chain today is down to 21. Sale of the Akron Times-Press means the dissolution of the third link in the Scripps-Howard chain in recent months. Six weeks ago, the ailing Buffalo Times was turned over to a local group headed by Editor George Lyon and Business Manager Earl L. Gaines. Month ago, the Toledo News-Bee, because of "greatly increased production costs," suspended publication, left the Toledo field to Paul Block's powerful evening Blade and unimportant morning Times.

Two years ago, when Scripps-Howard sold the Youngs town Telegram to the Vindicator, the chain's hold on Ohio began to weaken. Ohio was the birthplace of the late Edward Willys Scripps's great journalistic venture. Of its six once prosperous Ohio dailies, Scripps-Howard now has but three: the Cleveland Press, patriarch of the chain, the Cincinnati Post, the Columbus Citizen.

The difficulties of the Scripps-Howard papers and the tightening of the Hearst chain (see below) last week brought observers to the conclusion that U. S. chain journalism had passed its zenith. When stronger papers are no longer able to absorb the losses of the weaker papers, the essential strength of a chain is lost. While still under central management, the motto of chains has become: every paper for itself.

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