Candor in Black and White

Can a newspaper survive when its two publishers are in basic disagreement? That is the question facing the Manhattan Tribune, a weekly tabloid just started in New York. William Haddad, a member of the New York City School Board, and Roy Innis, National Director of CORE, are not only of different color--Haddad is white, Innis black--but also hold rival views on integration. Haddad is for it, Innis against. Still, the editors believe that by airing disagreements in print they can help start a dialogue between increasingly embittered white and black communities.

Not that the Tribune plans to be just another organ of polemics. It wants, instead, to take a reasoned look at the affairs of Harlem and the neighboring Upper West Side, the latter a somewhat dowdy but vital area that embraces a cluster of intellectuals, a substantially Jewish middle class and a smattering of just about every other race and religion. "Unlike most dailies," the Tribune announced, "we will not compete for hard news. Unlike many weeklies, we will be neither a community bulletin board nor a pamphlet for angry manifestations." With a 14-man staff--half black, half white--the paper hopes to reach an equally integrated readership. Its projected circulation is 30,000.

The first issue contains ingredients that should appeal to both races. One story tells about a Harlem group that is trying to bypass the city and organize a separate school district that will report directly to the state. Literary Critic Alfred Kazin contributes a whimsical appreciation of the Upper West Side: "Nowhere else I have ever lived is there such excess of money to comfort, of comfort to taste, of taste to safety." Above all, the Tribune plans to be a paper of investigation. For the first issue, a team of reporters did some comparison shopping and concluded that Harlem residents pay up to six times as much for prescription medicine as people on the West Side. Haddad, a onetime skilled investigative reporter for the New York Post, plans to follow up with exposee of the pervasive drug traffic in Harlem.

In every issue, Haddad and Innis will debate in separate editorial columns. "As the crescendo of black-militant demands rises," writes Haddad, "it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the old-fashioned Strom Thurmond segregationist policy of 1948 and the modern Roy Innis separationist philosophy of 1968." Retorts Innis: "This society is racist and won't change." Nevertheless, the two have some grounds for agreement. "Roy and I," says Haddad, "are not such purists that we can't isolate a problem and discuss it. We can both agree, for instance, on the need for developing black institutions." They plan to start a journalism training program for Negro and Puerto Rican youngsters. And they both share an enthusiasm for an uphill enterprise: New York City is not notably hospitable to struggling young newspapers. The Tribune is getting some help, editorial as well as financial, from an advisory committee that includes Time Inc. Chairman Andrew Heiskell, New York Times Associate Managing Editor Abe Rosenthal and Harper's Editor Willie Morris. Basically, however, the editors are counting on the fact that blacks and whites are concerned enough about one another to share a common newspaper.

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