Hoosier Hotshot

'The 79-year-old Indianapolis News, once published by Theodore Roosevelt's Vice President (Charles W. Fairbanks), was long the kingpin of the Hoosier press. James Whitcomb Riley and Kin Hubbard once graced its staff, and Press Lord Roy Howard, a home-town boy, got his first newspaper job at $4 a week. Lately, with rising costs and dwindling profits, the News needed a new building and new presses--and perhaps a new management.

Many a big-time publisher dropped around to take an appraising look. But last week it was a neighbor who went to the rescue. In a reorganization and stock transfer, Eugene Collins Pulliam bought control of the afternoon News (circ. 173,000), and merged it with his profitable morning Star (181,000). He will merge everything but the news gathering staff.

With Indiana's two biggest dailies in his hands, ex-Police Reporter Pulliam, an energetic behind-the-scene GOPoliticker, became a major publisher (he owns the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona-Republic, papers in Muncie, Vincennes, Huntington and Lebanon, and two radio stations). In Indianapolis, his paper's circulation outnumbers Roy Howard's afternoon Times (circ. 91,000). Last week, Howard said that the merger gave his Times "added responsibilities [which] we are fully prepared to meet." One possibility: a Scripps-Howard Sunday Times to do battle with Pulliam's Sunday Star.

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