Hearst's Step Forward

"A giant step forward takes place in Boston today!" caroled the newspaper advertisement. This joyful declaration was followed by the announcement that Hearst's two Boston tabloids, the morning Record and the evening American, had "combined into one." Henceforth, the dwindling number of Bostonians who prefer their news a la Hearst will have to get along with a single daily, the Record-American.

In a sense, the Hearst merger did indeed represent a "step forward." It eliminated a tenant from "the poor farm of American journalism"--as the late Oswald Garrison Villard described Boston's dismal and undistinguished newspaper scene (which, besides the two Hearst tabs, includes the Globe, the Herald and the Traveler). But Hearst's motive was less progress than pure economy. Both tabloids have been losing ground for years. Record circulation has dropped 59,000, to 352,842, since 1957; over the same period, the American has slipped from 176,318 to 163,169. After the merger was announced, dismissal telegrams went out to 222 employees; eventually the layoff figure may reach 600 (out of a total work force on both papers of 1,800). Anticipated annual savings in wages alone: $1,200,000 to $3,100,000.

The Boston merger was also fresh evidence that Richard E. Berlin, 67, cost-conscious president of the parent Hearst Corp., intends to strip the Hearst chain of all its weak links. Since 1951, when Chain Forger William Randolph Hearst died, Berlin has sold three Hearstpapers (Chicago's American, the Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, the Detroit Times) and merged the San Francisco Call-Bulletin with Scripps-Howard's News, retaining only a financial interest in the hyphenated News-Call Bulletin. At least three other Hearstpapers have been offered for sale: the Los Angeles morning Examiner and evening Herald-Express, and the New York Mirror.

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