Bitter Ending

An editor walks out

This has not been a banner year for the Cowles Media Co., the Minneapolis-based media empire that owns four daily and 16 weekly newspapers, two television stations and one cable TV system. Last April, declining profits prompted the company to merge its two home-town newspapers, both ranked among the best of the medium-size dailies in the U.S. The afternoon Star, which had undergone a steady circulation slide to 170,000, was folded into its matutinal sister, the Tribune (circ. 240,000). The merger cost 110 jobs, including 50 from the editorial staffs. Last month Cowles closed the Buffalo Courier-Express, the morning paper it had owned since 1979, after losing $25 million on its operation.

Still in a tight financial squeeze, the company last week announced another round of layoffs at the Star and Tribune: 75 jobs, including 28 from the editorial department. Staff reactions were stunned and even bitter, but none were as dramatic as that of Editor Charles W. Bailey. He resigned in protest, abruptly and angrily.

In his parting statement, Bailey, 53, a 32-year veteran of the Tribune and its editor since 1972, condemned the layoffs as "a very serious mistake" that "will have grave consequences." Bailey said the reductions would make it "difficult to maintain, let alone improve" the paper's quality. Bailey, who was to step down by year's end to return to the paper's Washington bureau as a senior national correspondent, then announced that under the changed circumstances it would be "unthinkable" to remain in any capacity. His departure, he said, was "the only way to meet my obligations to my craft, my colleagues and my own conscience."

Cowles Chairman Otto Silha said that Bailey's departure would not have "any great effect" on the quality of the paper. But for some Star and Tribune staff members, Bailey's protest reflected a growing concern that the company was stressing profitability and the value of its privately held stock above journalistic quality. "It came as a complete shock," said Brent Stahl, a news research analyst and staffer with the paper's respected Minnesota Poll, which is also being axed. The local Newspaper Guild polled its members and produced a vote of "no confidence" in the paper's publisher, Donald Dwight. But City Editor Bob Franklin, asked if he could continue to operate with the reduced staff, grimly replied, "We can and we will."

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