The Chain of Copper

For 60 years Anaconda Co. was the press lord of Montana, owning seven dailies* in five of the state's major cities. Last week Anaconda's Board Chairman Clyde Weed announced that the company aimed to sell all seven papers. Behind the decision is the story of how Anaconda bought newspapers to consolidate its hold on Montana, came to discover that they were doing the company more harm than good.

The chain was forged in the turn-of-the-century war of the copper kings, when the company used its newspapers as ironfisted, copperplated propaganda sheets in its successful fight for supremacy. In the '20s, when the company began to fret that its papers were furthering its image as a monopolist, it toned them down, tried to shape the news more by selecting than slanting or denouncing. Events harmful to Anaconda were either ignored or downplayed ; the papers even began to avoid all local controversies.

But Anaconda could not overcome its reputation. Suspicious Montana readers automatically looked for the "copper collar" riveted around every story. Ironically, the policy of playing down company news prevented Anaconda from playing up its notable contributions to the state in its earnest postwar campaign to win friends, e.g., the $400,000 employees' club given to Butte. Circulation grew slowly; last year Anaconda's papers netted a paltry $183,411.

Among the score of groups that have assayed the Anaconda papers, the most likely buyer is the Midwest's loosely knit, ten-paper Lee syndicate./- Founded by A. (for Alfred) W. Lee in 1890, the chain is now handled by his nephew, Lee Loomis, 74, who lives in Mason City, Iowa, presides over a tidy little empire that is generally pro-Republican, but allows its members to play the news as staidly or sensationally as they like. The reported bid of the Lee papers for the copper chain: some $6,000,000.

* Billings Gazette (circ. 36,002), Butte-Ana-conda Montana Standard (circ. 19,248) and Post (circ. 9,345), Missoula Missoulian (circ. 15,135) and Sentinel (circ. 3,272), Helena Independent-Record (circ. 7,708), Livingston Enterprise (circ. 2,740).

/- Kewanee (Ill.) Star-Courier, Davenport (Iowa) Democrat and Times, Mason City (Iowa) Globe-Gazette, Muscatine (Iowa) Journal, Ottumwa (Iowa) Courier, Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post, Lincoln (Neb.) Star, LaCrosse (Wis.) Tribune, Madison (Wis.) State Journal.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.