Too Many Papers in L. A.?

The Newspaper Guild began dickering last week for a new contract with the Los Angeles Daily News (circ. 224,239). It got some bad news. Associate Publisher Bob Smith told the Guild that staffers would get small raises, but that 53 employees (ten of them newsmen) would have to be fired to economize. He made it clear that unless the Guild agreed, the News might have to shut up shop.

The Guild talked management into keeping at least nine of the 53 (all janitors), and reluctantly agreed to the dismissal of some of the others. No Newsman need have been surprised that his paper was in a fix. In the past three years, advertising has gone up 7%, but circulation has dropped 24%. The News, California's only big-city Democratic daily, lopped off three editions, and 100 employees last year, this year has already lost $250,000.

Like all U.S. dailies, the News is plagued by mounting newsprint prices and production costs. And its newest, breeziest competitor, the three-year-old afternoon tabloid Mirror, is taking more & more of its readers and ads.

But the News is not the only Los Angeles paper to feel the pinch. Hearst's morning Examiner has fired five news staffers in two weeks for "economy" and is close to being in the red. Hearst's afternoon Herald-Express, is reportedly in the red. Of all Los Angeles papers only Norman Chandler's fat, old morning Times is coining money. But it too has its troubles. It is pumping its profits into the Mirror, which it owns. Despite the Mirror's fast growth, the tabloid is still losing money. It looked as if there might be one too many papers in Los Angeles.

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