Toot! Toot!

From industry to orange groves, practically everything thrives in the skillet-shaped San Fernando Valley. Out of every 100 people who went to Los Angeles in the '50s, 80 settled in the Valley, and today it is growing faster than any major U.S. city. Average family income is $9,300; retail sales last year ran better than $1.6 billion. Even the lackluster San Fernando Valley Times managed to make a little money, and when John Cowles, president of the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, put up about $3,000,000 to buy the little daily in 1960, his proud plans sounded perfectly reasonable. He figured to turn the Times into a big, successful paper with a circulation of 1,000,000. Now, after 31 years of expensive effort, Cowles has sold the paper, convinced at last that in the San Fernando Valley a good newspaper is hard to found.

Dripping Zeal. Before Cowles came along, the Valley Times was satisfied with a circulation of 50,000. Owner Russell A. Quisenberry kept salaries low (top: $105 a week), filled the pages with canned features that were best exemplified by a column called "Kuff Notes," by Willie Looseleaf ("One thing about a tree surgeon, he never loses a patient unless it's dead wood").

Impatient with such lethargy, the new owner reached for a success similar to that of the late Alicia Patterson's Newsday (circ. 373,587), which caters to Long Island suburbanites. He brought in a task force of bright, energetic newsmen, increased the news staff to 50, and boosted salaries. From Minneapolis came Promotion Manager Robert Weed as publisher and Assistant City Editor Ed Goodpaster as managing editor. "Cowles couldn't be expected to run a schlock operation here," says Weed. "This had to look like something."

It did. The paper's name was changed to the Valley Times Today. Bureaus were opened all through the Valley. Special interest pages on schools, youth and clubs were added. The composing room got the lead out, changed the body type and headline style. The paper fairly dripped with zeal. Says one ex-staffer: "It was like being in on the early days of Pulitzer's Post-Dispatch, TIME or The New Yorker. We all felt that we were part of a mission." The pages blossomed with news from the Star-Tribune's Washington bureau; there was a weekend wrap-up section, features on abortions, Viet Nam, the county fair and Black Muslims. Three editions blanketed the Valley every day. But circulation increased by only 1,500 copies; the paper lost about $25,000 a month.

The failure can be blamed largely on the character of the Valley. Like so many suburban areas, San Fernando Valley is an amorphous appendage of Los Angeles rather than a well-defined community. Its commuters drive to work, have no time to read while going to and from their jobs. When they do reach for a paper, there are plenty besides the Valley Times Today. The area is swamped with half-ads shoppers' throwaways. And to make matters worse, the Los Angeles Times met the

Cowles challenge by starting a Valley edition (circ. 86,000).

Old Times. Disappointed by the Valley, Cowles sold out for about $2,000,000 to Lammot Copeland Jr., son of Du Font's president. The paper has resumed its old name and much of its old flavor. Russell Quisenberry is back, as board chairman. The new publisher is a self-styled "Constitutionalist" named Ben Reddick, a public relations man who ran the triweekly Newport Beach News-Press so haphazardly that the Audit Bureau of Circulation was moved to comment in 1961: "The condition of the circulation records made an ac curate audit for the previous 24 months impossible."

Reddick is a gung-ho type of a vastly different style from Cowles. A man of strong conservative views, he has declared himself glad with Goldwater, distrustful of foreign aid, suspicious of the Negro civil rights revolt. He is now on the lookout for "a good Constitutional columnist. I'd give my right arm to have Fulton Lewis Jr."

Meanwhile, the Times has fallen back on its old unpredictable ways. Its new character is best illustrated by a piece written by Ben Reddick himself. "Today is today," he trumpeted. "Progress is wonderful. Toot! Toot!"

Many of the Cowles-recruited staffers who have not already fled are frantically looking for jobs. They don't give even one toot.

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