Maxims & Moonshine

Though the proof is not always in the perusing, the independent Toledo Blade and the arch-Republican Los Angeles Times make similar claims to fame. The Blade, according to its masthead, is ONE OF AMERICA'S GREAT NEWSPAPERS. The L.A. Times reaches further, dubs itself ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT NEWSPAPERS. The World's Greatest Newspaper? By decree of the late Colonel Bertie McCormick, that title was taken by his own Chicago Daily Tribune in 1911. As a staffer shrugged last week, "We can hardly back down now."

Almost unnoticed behind the ominous headlines last week, the varied slogans of the U.S. press continued to make one unimpeachable claim: nowhere else do front pages support so rich a top dressing of hyperbole. Rare is the U.S. paper that Forgoes the opportunity to nail a brag to its masthead. The Denver Post celebrates the CLIMATE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. The Atlanta Journal COVERS DIXIE LIKE THE DEW. The Fairbanks News-Miner is AMERICA'S FARTHEST NORTH DAILY PAPER; the Miami News, THE BEST NEWSPAPER UNDER THE SUN.

All That Fits. Charleston's News & Courier styles itself SOUTH CAROLINA'S MOST OUTSPOKEN NEWSPAPER. The staunchly segregationist Columbus Commercial Dispatch hails itself as MISSISSIPPI'S MOST PROGRESSIVE NEWSPAPER. Connecticut's 197-year-old Hartford Courant calls itself the OLDEST NEWSPAPER OF CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION IN AMERICA. Despite saturation news coverage by TV and radio, many dailies idly boast that they are FIRST WITH THE NEWS.*

Masthead moonshine flows thickest through the nation's weeklies, from Missouri's Unterrified Democrat (EVERYBODY READS THE U.D.) to Maine's Millinocket Journal, which tailors the New York Times's famed 65-year-old slogan (ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT) to ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS WE PRINT. In another Maine weekly, the Kennebunk Star, the mysterious initials THWTB sprouted recently on Page One. Halfheartedly, Publisher Alexander Brook explained that they stand for THE HARD WAY'S THE BEST. In fact, they represent the classic cry of exasperated newsmen everywhere: To Hell with the Bastards!

Some of the biggest U.S. dailies still carry mastheads whose fusty design and pompous preachments seem unchanged since reporters wore celluloid collars. The Baltimore Sun's front page has advocated LIGHT FOR ALL since 1840, 41 years before the city was electrified. Along with the Hearst emblem, an eagle roosting on a starred shield, the San Francisco Examiner clings loyally to the pet name--THE MONARCH OF THE DAILIES--bestowed on it by the Chief 74 years ago.

The Full Corn. Many obscure masthead adages survive only out of deference to long-dead founders. Until recently, the Denver Post peppered the papers with a passel of Founder-Gambler Frederick Bonfils' hand-me-down maxims, including a standing head that ran over every police story: CRIME NEVER PAYS. One of the most enigmatic samples of U.S. newspaper wisdom comes from Mark 4:28 and runs above the Christian Science Monitor's lucid editorial page. It was adopted at the behest of Founder Mary Baker Eddy, who prescribed the original quote from the King James Version of the Bible: "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." Staving off endless wisecracks, a resourceful editor substituted the verse as it appears in the American Standard Version, in time for the first issue in November 1908. The new translation carried by the Monitor shucked the corn, uses grain instead.

* A legitimate claim in the case of the English-language Fiji Times (circ. 5,100), which is printed only 600 miles west of the international date line, calls itself THE FIRST NEWSPAPER IN THE WORLD EACH DAY.

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