THE TABLOID TODAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01314R000100240001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 3, 2006
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: May 12, 1969
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved .For Release 2006/11 /072`4M P88-01 ?1T4RT}001
.~ r AY lai STAT .
PRESS
The Tabloid Today
t "Today at 12 noon, Chicago gets its first
new newspaper in 28 years," the ad
boasted last week. That's the Windy City
for you. Actually, the Chicago Tribune
Co. had killed off its evening news-
paper, Chicago's American (circulation:
436,893)-the weakest of the city's four
dailies-and brought it back to life with a
new face and form as Chicago Today.
The American was a standard-size
newspaper', Today is tabloid-size. Though
the tabloid format has had something of
a disreputable past, the change was not
made capriciously. For months the Trib-
une Co. had looked enviously across
North Michigan Avenue at Field Enter-
prises' robust Sun-Times (circulation:
546,570), a morning tabloid that-bas
over the years gradually been thi?caten-
ing the leadership of the powerful
Tribune itself (circulation: 805,924).
And when the Tribune Co. surveyed
Sun-Times readers it discovered that
what 40 per cent of them liked best
about the Sun-Times was the compact-
ness and convenience of the tabloid size,
And so the Tribune Co. decided that a
tabloid was just the format to catch the
eye of younger readers who are pre-
sumably busier and are often commuters.
At the same time, it would be a fresh
choice for readers and advertisers in the
.competition with Field's standard-size
evening newspaper, the Daily News (cir-
culation: 461,357). "We want the young
families making more than $10,000 a
,year," says Today publisher Lloyd
Wendt, "and we think we can get them."
Pornographic: The tabloid* has been
lowly regarded throughout much of
American history. In Colonial days, the
large page gained favor partly because
the British taxed newspapers according
to the number of pages. More recently,
.many publishers have avoided the tabloid
'because it connoted sensationalism. That
reputation was mostly the legacy of the
11920s when three New York "tabs"-
William Randolph Hearst's Daily Mirror,
Ijoseph Patterson's Daily News and Ber-
narr Macfadden's Graphic (often called
the "Pornographic") -vied with one an-
lother to . titillate readers with the most
lurid news of the day. In. one notorious
escapade, News photographer Tom How-
ard strapped a forbidden camera to his
leg and walked into Sing Sing prison to
photograph the execution of Mrs. Ruth
I Snyder, who, along with her lover, had
been convicted of murdering her hus-
hand. The picture appeared on page one.
These days there are fewer than a
dozen major city tabloids left (among
them: the Post and the News in New
York; Newsday on Long Island, the Rec-
ord-American in Boston, The Philadol-
phia News, Tho Washington News).
From the French word tablo'ide, moaning tablet
for capsule{ from that it came to mean pressed in
Many of them argue that they are now;
seeking respectability rather than scan-;
dal. "The screaming headlines meant
something in the clays when street sales
were important," says Harold G. Kern,
publisher of the Record-American (cir-'
culation: 433,372). "But now people get
their headlines from radio and televi-
sion. You don't pick up circulation with
that sensational stuff." (The newspapers
are also trying to downplay the name
tabloid; Chicago Today refers to itself as
a "compact journal"; the Sun-Times has
called itself the "mini-paper.")
Quality: The qualities that the tab-
loids try to 'emphasize these days are
their conciseness and their. ease in ban-
dling. Newsday recently commissioned a
survey of Long. Island readers which in-
dicated that though a majority continued
to associate quality with a standard-size
newspaper, some 60 per cent said they
A long way from, Ruth Snyder
nonetheless preferred reading a tabloid.
"I found it difficult to develop a feeling
for the tabloid at first," says Newsday;
publisher Bill D. Moyers. "But now I am.
beginning to see the possibilities of a'
tabloid. For example, we have made our,
.page one look more and more like a
magazine cover."
As it changed its form, Chicago Today
also tried to improve its content, elevat-
ing star feature writer Dorothy Storck to
columnist and creating an additional col-
umn on the editorial page ("Our Report-
er Sounds Off") to enable newsmen to
express their personal opinions. But for
the 'most part the editors and the writers
remained the same. And certainly the
newspaper's reverential attitude toward
Chicago's political leaders remained tin-
changed. "Will you please keep in mind
the fact that [Mayor Richard] Daley and
[Gov. I3.ichard 13.] Ogilvie will be our
guests at the inaugural breakfast," a ?
memo from editor Luke P. Carroll ad-
monlshed. the staff before the first issue
was out. "Let's not kick them in the'
teeth in,pur inaugural paper."
Approved For Release 2006/11'07: CIA- RDP'88-01314R000100240001-8