Star Dimmed

For the Kansas City Star, it was a bitter piece of news, but the Star gave it unflinching play. Atop Page One ran the headline JURY FINDS THE STAR GUILTY. In the biggest antitrust criminal suit ever brought by the Government against a U.S. newspaper (TIME, Feb. 14 et seq.), the jury in Kansas City's U.S. District Court found the afternoon Star and its morning edition, the Times, guilty of using combination ad and circulation rates to create a monopoly in the "dissemination of news and advertising in the Kansas City area." Maximum penalty for the Star Co.: a $10,000 fine. The jury also found Star Advertising Director Emil A. Sees, the only individual named in the indictment, guilty of attempting to create a monopoly. Maximum penalty: $5,000 fine and one year in prison.

The Star Co. and Ad Director Sees promptly announced that they would appeal; Federal Judge Richard M. Duncan meanwhile considered a motion to dismiss the case against Sees. Star Publisher Roy Roberts blasted the court's verdict, saying: "We sincerely felt that [the Government's case was] so flimsy it should not even have gone to a jury."

Any change in the Star's ad and circulation practices will await the results of its appeal and hearings of a civil suit also filed by the Department of Justice. In the civil suit, which is now being prepared for trial, the Government wants the court to order the Star Co. to divorce its radio-TV station WDAF from the newspapers, and split up the Star and Times into two separate papers as far as circulation and ad rates are concerned.

If the Star should lose both the appeal and the civil suit, the verdict would not only bring a big change in the Star's publishing practices; it could also affect about 180 other dailies that use the unit or combination rate. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that the unit rate is not automatically unfair competition unless the Government can prove unfair practices in each case (TIME, June 1, 1953). But if the Star loses, the verdict could encourage the Justice Department to go after other papers that use the unit rate.

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