Signs of Life in New York

Although some thought it dead, the idea of a New York afternoon newspaper is still very much alive at the Daily News. The paper has been talking it over with the unions and has shown a dummy issue to prospective advertisers. This week the directors of the Chicago Tribune-Daily News meet in Florida to ponder a decision. "The News is farther down the road toward bringing out a paper than anyone else has been," says International Typographers Union Boss Bert Powers.

One reason for venturing into the afternoon field is the desire to reach a higher-income, "quality" audience that the morning tabloid misses. That would mean putting out a paper much like the one envisioned by the New York Times before it gave up the idea. As one Daily News editor puts it: "The Times's biggest problem was that by aiming at the quality market it was cutting its own throat." The News does not face that dilemma.

No Roadblocks. The News's dummy is standard size, with six columns instead of eight. It will publish five days a week and skip weekends so as not to compete with the Sunday News.* Likely contributors include Old Herald Tribune Hands Eugenia Sheppard, Dick Schaap and Judith Crist. The News hopes to avoid depleting its own staff and recruit almost entirely from the outside. So far, the Newspaper Guild has responded favorably. "We won't put roadblocks into the launching of the paper," says Guild Executive Vice President Tom Murphy, who is happy to have some new jobs.

With a projected circulation of over 400,000, the News feels, its paper could be printed at 20% less cost than the short-lived World Journal Tribune. The News has faster, more modern presses than the WJT and is more centrally located in Manhattan. The city's big retailers, however, are remarkably slow to advertise in any untried medium; many are happy enough with the morning New York Times, the afternoon Post and the surrounding suburban papers. Running, on the average, some 30 pages fatter since the demise of the WJT, the Post feels more impregnable than ever. Despite forecasts of imminent death all these years, it has outlived all other afternoon challengers. "Why should I worry about another paper starting?" asks Publisher Dorothy Schiff. "I'm only worried about nuclear warfare."

* Starting in February, however, New York will get a new Sunday paper, the Knickerbocker News. Put out by the publishers of Funk & Wagnall's Dictionary, it will contain many of the columnists, comics and features that used to appear in the World Journal Tribune but now have no New York outlet, although they are carried by out-of-town papers.

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