Launching a Satellite

NEWSPAPERS Many a metropolitan newspaper has tried to cope weith surburban sprawl rom downtown by slipping surburban supplements into regular editions and shipping them to outlying communitties. The Los Angeles Times was one newspaper following the practice, usuing many "zoned" editions to serve some 76 towns in the surrounding suburbs. Times Publisher Otis Chandler watched the process with growing dissatisfaction, then decided that the only solution is for a newspaper to grow the way a modern city-community grows.

In Los Angeles' case, as in many others, the growth is producing an ever-expanding circle of satellite towns, with citizens showing an increased interest in local affairs. To give them the local news they want, Chandler decided there was no substitute for being on the spot. The result appeared last week: the Orange County edition, edited, printed and partly written by a 32-man Times satellite staff operating entirely* in Orange County.

Deserved Prominence. Orange County provides a fertile testing ground for the new, independent edition. One of the fastest-growing counties in the entire U.S. it added 1,140 persons a week in 1967 and its population now stands at 1,290,000, more than that of Buffalo, Denver, Atlanta or Kansas City. Within its borders are two self-contained industrial cities, Anaheim and Santa Ana, with a combined population of 304,000. The University of California has opened an Orange County campus at Irvine. The Aeronutronic Division of Philco-Ford and Hunt Foods & Industries are located within the county, and North American Rockwell has principal plants there as well.

In daily operation, the Times's four downtown-news sections are trucked in mat form or transmitted by computer-typesetter to the suburban edition's new $7 000,000 plant in Costa Mesa. There, Managing Editor Ted Weegar, former assistant managing editor of the metropolitan edition, tears the pages apart and remakes them as he sees fit. Orange County stories are scattered throughout the entire newspaper. National and world news can be replaced on page 1 and in the rest of the first section, but only if an Orange County story deserves the prominence. No attempt will be made to put local news up in the front sections of the newspaper for mere appearance's sake. On page 2, a one-column daily summary of "Metropolitan" news contains "Or ange County" items instead.

The second section of the paper-containing editorials, features and local news stories in the downtown edition-gets even more attention from the Orange County staff. In the first issue last week, an editorial about Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty's budget was replaced by a we're-glad-to-be-here editorial in the Orange County edition. Two pages of less important local news stories were added, along with two more pages of Orange County classified advertising. The sports section carried stories on a scandal involving athlete-recruiting in Orange County high schools and Amigos' (of speculation the about American the Basketball Anaheim Association) moving their playing head quarters to a new arena.

Making Sense. The Times plans to spend $9,500,000 a year on its satellite edition. A good portion of this will be spent on remaking about 30% of the paper each day in Costa Mesa-- al though the staff operates with an un for the derstanding sake of that it will remaking. not The remake aim is just to give suburbanites and exurbamtes the feeling that they are reading a world-minded paper with a home-town emphasis.

Chandler, who foresees success for his new Orange County venture within a few years ("after all the bugs are worked out"), is wary of predicting that the Orange County formula will set any publishing trends, but it very well may. He is already thinking of adding additional satellites during the next five years in such growing Los Angeles sub urban areas as Ventura County and the San Gabriel Valley. And in the fu ture he says, satellite publishing seem to make sense in metropolitan markets, where papers are interested in furthering their economic base, away from the center city."

-Two other Orange County staffers work outside the county. One reports news of interest to the county from the state capital at Sacramento; the other writes Orange County editorials from the Times's main office.

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