Last Rites for a Proud Paper

By Janice Castro

In Philadelphia, nearly everybody mourns the Bulletin

When the end came, the feelings in the Philadelphia Bulletin's fourth-floor newsroom, like those at the bedside of a dying family member, did not include surprise. The 134-year-old afternoon daily, once the nation's largest, had been living with the bleak diagnosis for more than a year. In December, its owners, the Charter Company of Jacksonville, finally put it up for sale. Last week, with no takers to be found, and awash in red ink, the Bulletin became another logo in the graveyard of big-city newspapers. Said Charter Communications President J.P. Smith Jr.: "In the final analysis, the paper was unable to generate the circulation and additional advertising revenues ... it needed to survive."

Charter had promised to keep the presses rolling as long as serious talks with prospective buyers were under way. The city pitched in some brotherly love with a SAVE OUR BULLETIN campaign: on Jan. 18, 300 loyal supporters sporting S.O.B. buttons held a candlelight vigil in front of the paper's offices in subfreezing weather, and Mayor William Green offered tax breaks and low-interest loans to help finance a purchase. But in the end, Charter could not even give the paper away. Its terms: $29.5 million in promissory notes, and guaranteed payment of $12 million in severance costs to the paper's 1,943 employees if the new owner could not turn the paper around. According to company spokesmen, four groups of buyers did come forward, but each found the newspaper's prospects too discouraging. Circulation had climbed back to 405,000 from a 64-year low of 397,000 in September, but the Bulletin's share of the city's newspaper advertising linage was still dropping, from an anemic 28% in November, to 24% in January, compared with the 60% commanded by the morning Inquirer (circ. 424,000). After losing $21.5 million in 1981, the Bulletin was dropping nearly $3 million per month when Charter gave up. Said Publishing Analyst John Morton: "Anyone trying to sell a newspaper in that condition would need a mask and a gun."

Nevertheless, the Gray Old Lady of Filbert Street will be missed. Founded in 1847 as Cummings' Evening Telegraphic Bulletin, it made history with its inaugural edition by publishing the first telegraph report in a U.S. newspaper, a dispatch from the Mexican War. The Bulletin was not so fast on the circulation front. When Businessman William McLean bought it in 1895, it was last in a field of 13 city dailies, and sold for 2-c-. McLean cut the price in half and increased coverage of local news. By 1905 the paper was the city's largest; by 1947, with 761,000 readers, it was the nation's biggest afternoon daily. Its slogan became widely known through advertisements in The New Yorker: "In Philadelphia nearly everybody reads The Bulletin. "In its news columns, the Bulletin was solid if unspectacular. Local affairs were covered extensively, but politely: muckraking was frowned upon. Critics gibed that only in Philadelphia would nearly everybody read the Bulletin. But the Bulletin's understated brand of journalism won Pulitzer Prizes in 1964 and 1965.

When readers and advertisers moved to the suburbs, the Bulletin gamely followed. It introduced regional editions for four suburban counties on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River, and leased a plant in southern New Jersey to print a state edition. Scores of reporters fanned out to school and county meetings, but their efforts could not match the combined resources of the smaller suburban dailies. Like other evening papers, the Bulletin also faced distribution problems and competition from television news.

But the Bulletin's biggest problem was the morning Inquirer. Acquired by the Knight-Ridder chain in 1970, the Inquirer was for several years after that on the verge of extinction. At its low point in 1975 the paper lost millions as circulation dipped to 401,000. Had the Bulletin started a morning edition then, the Inquirer might have folded. But instead the Bulletin stood pat while the Inquirer built a national reputation under Executive Editor Gene Roberts. Winning six consecutive Pulitzer Prizes, the Inquirer outfoxed, outspent and outclassed its rival. Roberts even managed to wrest away Doonesbury, the popular comic strip. Startled, a Bulletin editor huffed that the theft was "not gentlemanly." "We never particularly contended it was," Roberts replied. The Bulletin launched a morning edition in 1978, but by then the momentum had shifted decisively. When the Inquirer grabbed the circulation lead in 1980, the Bulletin was already listing badly. Says former Publisher William McLean III of Charter's last-ditch attempts to save the paper: "They thought they could rescue it, but they had the same problems we did. Nothing could be done."

The Bulletin's demise leaves Philadelphia solely to Knight-Ridder, which also publishes the afternoon Daily News (circ. 223,000). The Inquirer, which has an editorial staff of 330 and eight national and foreign bureaus, is planning a major expansion in the wake of the Bulletin's closing. New bureaus will be opened in Boston, New Orleans, Cairo, Nairobi, New Delhi and London, and Roberts plans to hire at least 50 new reporters and editors, many from the Bulletin. Says he: "We feel that the Bulletin's death puts a rather awesome responsibility on us as a survivor to see that coverage in the area doesn't suffer."

Other big-city editors were quick to express condolences. Said American Society of Newspaper Editors President Michael O'Neill: "For all of us in the newspaper business, it is a very sad day." Nobody knows that better than O'Neill: his own paper, the New York Daily News (circ. 1.5 million), has been seeking a buyer since its owner, Chicago's Tribune Company, put it up for sale just before Christmas. Last week, News editors were quietly briefed on severance arrangements that will go into effect if the paper closes. Many read their own feelings in the front-page message in the Bulletin's final edition: IT'S OVER. AND THERE'S VERY LITTLE LEFT TO SAY, EXCEPT GOODBYE.

--By Janice Castro

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