Woodyard Weeklies

Until last week the largest chain of weekly newspapers in the land was Ohio s Procter group of 17, assembled by the late Col William Cooper Procter (Ivory Soap) and Charles Bond (Two-Pants Suits) at a cost of $300,000. Last week the Procter chain fell into second place as the three Woodyard brothers of West Virginia marched into New York State. With the help of their good friend Spruille Braden, whose father made his money in Chile copper they raised some $60,000 new capital, acquired control of eight weeklies on Long Island's plump, profitable North Shore, linked them with their 15 county-seat weeklies in West Virginia. The Long Island and West Virginia groups are embodied in separate corporations, but both are managed by the Woodyards Since most of the 11,000 weeklies in the U. S. are independently owned, the Woodyards field of expansion is practically unlimited. Last week they turned appraising eyes toward New York's Westchester County, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, with an objective of a chain of 200 to 300 country weeklies.

The Brothers Woodyard -- William ("Bill''), 39, Edward Douglas ("Ted"), 37, and Henry Chapman, 35--are sons of the late Representative Harry C. Woodyard of West Virginia. In 1920 a business dispute dumped the Spencer, W. Va. Times-Record into Congressman Woodyard's lap. Father Woodyard put his sons to work on the paper. They liked it, made it earn money. Five years later they acquired a second weekly, then a third, fourth, fifth and so on.

Learning as they went along, the Woodyards developed the policy of leaving each paper severely alone editorially, keeping a hawkeye on its cash drawer. All an editor-manager had to do was show a fair profit If he failed, his chiefs, directing affairs from Spencer, might cut him down to a one-man shop, might even erase his paper entirely. Hence, Woodyard papers have paid dividends from the start, earning $3.40 -- share on 3,500 shares of common stock in the last six months. And they do not bear the stamp of chain journalism.

Circulations of Woodyard weeklies range from 600 for the Fayetteville Journal to 5,900 for the Fayetteville Tribune In boom times the Spencer Times-Record ran as high as 60 pages, led the U. S. weekly field in display advertising. Current average is about twelve pages. Average staff is two men per paper. The editor-manager-printer is usually a youngster. He is expected to fill his sheet with personal notes and local news, is allowed little syndicated "boiler plate." If news is non-existent he may, in emergency, skip an issue, but must make it up some day because the law requires him to produce 52 issues a year. Sometimes he suddenly runs out of newsprint, telephones the home office for more, receives a rebuke for telephoning instead of writing. In one instance a Woodyard local editor was injured by a falling tree. The former owner of the sheet stepped in. published several issues before the home management knew anything about it. Average editor-manager's pay: $25 a week plus bonuses.

The Woodyard newspapers print the sort of patent medicine advertising characteristic of smalltown weeklies. They try to determine that the medicine is not misrepresented and that the advertiser's credit is good. But as explained by Brother "Ted" Woodyard, who has settled in Syossett. L. I. to direct the Long Island papers: "Our credit department is better equipped than our laboratory."

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