Wishing on a Star

The story has a catchy beginning: "Ferocious swarms of man-killing bees are buzzing their way toward North America." The second curt paragraph fairly shouts in terror: "They have already smashed their way through Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru." Lest the tension become unbearable, a third paragraph offers relief: "But don't panic. It may take ten to 14 years before the bees hit the U.S." This rather anticlimactic tale could well be a metaphor for the paper that carries it in its first issue, appearing on newsstands this week. The tabloid weekly National Star is arriving with a loud promotional buzz, but there is not much editorial sting in sight.

With an opening press run of 1.5 million, to be distributed initially in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, the Star represents a major invasion by Australian Publishing Baron Rupert Murdoch. Now 42, Murdoch inherited a small Australian daily from his father in 1953 and built it into a worldwide publishing empire: eleven magazines and more than 80 newspapers in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. Murdoch's major acquisitions include Britain's Peeping-Tom Sunday News of the World (circ. 6,000,000) and the London Sun (circ. 3,000,000), which was failing until he took it over in 1969 and applied his formula: cheesecake, crime coverage and a prose style seemingly aimed at readers who move their lips.

The Star is a subdued version of its naughtier British sisters. Its models are more or less clothed and the focus is on entertainment, sports and advice ("Let us make you a star") rather than scandal. Its layout is in the British popular mold: narrow columns, small body type, terse stories, a welter of breathless headlines, jumbled boxes and graphics--all suggesting an earthquake in the composing room. Once they get past the frenetic format, American readers may feel let down by the torpor of Star stories.

The best that the paper can offer on Watergate is a hearsay account of the forthcoming book by Washington Post Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; the headline is ominous ("Another time bomb ticking away under the White House"), but the text offers no dynamite ("Insiders hint that Bernstein and Woodward make no new startling disclosures in their book").

In fact, the softspoken, impeccably tailored Murdoch is now far more interesting than the Star itself. He confidently expects to tap a huge audience that others are not reaching. He thinks that most major publications here are aimed "at the rich and the intellectual." "Daily newspapers are limited and local," he says, "and national magazines have to depend on advertising dollars and the opinions of Madison Avenue." He wants the Star to lean almost solely on circulation revenue provided by readers willing to pay a quarter at newsstands or supermarkets.

He dismisses the National Enquirer, a once scandalous tabloid now gone straight, as middleaged: "It writes about old movie stars, UFOs, health--all legitimate subjects but not of great interest to the young family audience we want." For all its faults, Vol. I, No. 1 of the Star is written with zest; many may find it the "good read" Murdoch wants it to be. The Star's first issues are being put out by a team of veterans from other Murdoch papers and a growing number of American recruits. Murdoch plans a full-time staff of 30, will hire an American editor after the shakedown period is over. He has launched a $5,000,000 promotion campaign and hopes to begin national distribution within four months if things go well. Murdoch has confounded skeptics in the past, and the U.S. may indeed be vulnerable to foreign attack. As another Star story points out: "If all the Chinese jumped up and down in unison, the vibrations would cause a tidal wave that could engulf America."

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