The Mysterious Boxes

Managing Editor Don Maxwell, 54, of the Chicago Tribune ("World's Greatest Newspaper") has his own private slogan to keep staffers on their toes. The slogan:

don't "be second to any New York newspaper." Last month, when Maxwell was visiting New York, his competitive instincts were aroused by a fanfare of Page One headlines in the New York Herald Tribune announcing the "Camerama," a new* secret "revolutionary camera that will make press history." The "amazing camera," bragged the Herald Trib, takes a 160DEG, wide-angled picture, which the paper printed across 16 columns, i.e., two full newspaper pages. The camera mechanism, the Herald Trib continued, is so secret that only its inventor knows how it works, and he keeps it concealed in an "aluminum breadbox." The Trib said that other papers were dickering for the use of the camera.

The hoopla was too much for the Chicago Trib's Maxwell. He picked up the phone to Chicago and gave a simple order: match the Herald Trib's pictures.

Last week, across 16 columns, the Chicago Trib spread a picture of the Kentucky Derby taken by the "Tribune mystery camera." It was similar to a picture that ran in the Herald Trib. Trumpeted the Chicago Trib in a Page One story: "The breathtaking 160DEG picture" marks the opening of a new era in news photography. The mystery camera that took the picture was "concealed in a battered black box resembling a doctor's suitcase." Two days later, the Chicago Trib let out the big secret about its "mystery camera." In an editorial aimed good-naturedly at the Herald Trib, the Chicago Trib said that the "mystery camera" was actually an old-fashioned "panorama" camera (patented in 1896), similar to the type that is still used to take pictures of outdoor gatherings. The Trib bought the old camera for $25, repaired and adjusted it in its own photographic lab and sent a photographer to the Kentucky Derby to test it. Said the Trib: "Our confidence in the $25 mystery camera is not misplaced. We congratulate the Herald Tribune editors . . . and hope they didn't spend any more on their mystery camera than we did."

* The Trib this week began another innovation: a pocket-size, 88-page TV and Radio Magazine, printed on slick paper with feature articles, program listings and full-color pictures, inserted in its regular Sunday edition.

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