With all of the consolidations and bottom-line corporate emphasis that overtook the newspaper industry in the last decades of the 20th century, before the Internet delivered its own whammy to circulation and revenue, you could find publications large and small that had their own unique style and voice. A signature, if you will. Even by the mid-80s, when I was making sales calls to locales across the Northeast, the majority of the papers I visited were cookie-cutter operations focused on basics like city council and school board meetings, high school sports scores, and obituaries.
That’s not what attracted me to the business, as you probably know by now.
Today let’s look at ten newspapers that did inspire me in my evolution as a journalist.
- Dayton Journal Herald: This was the morning paper, six days a week, so we got a color comics section on Saturday. The rival Dayton Daily News had the Sunday edition, with its own color comics. When the paper was created in 1949 from the merger of the Journal and the Evening Herald, it was a moderate Republican voice under editor and publisher Dwight Young, who built on a tradition of family-friendly while downplaying sensation and crime. Instead of “women’s news” or “society pages,” the Modern Living section under Marj Heyduck’s guidance was a pioneer in what would become lifestyle coverage, or “features,” which played a big role in my own career. Similarly, Glenn Thompson, the first editor to hire me, had a knack for giving other people credit for his own ideas and visions, and then pushing them forward to completion – including the new Wright State University I attended my first year and a half of college. Glenn, too, was the one who impressed upon me the importance of keeping a personal journal. The opinion page also included short, whimsical editorials in addition to the more serious ones. He believed a paper had an obligation to educate its readers, rather than pander to their lower instincts.
- New York Herald Tribune: Among the out-of-town papers available at Wilkie’s News on Ludlow Street during my high school years, the Herald Tribune in its final stretch was a scrappy, classy, competitive, pioneering revelation. It had some great writers – among them Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin of the new journalism stream – plus elegant layout with some tabloid playfulness in headlines. Its Sunday magazine was called New York, which wound up surviving on its own. In my estimation, the Herald Trib was the greatest newspaper ever, even if it couldn’t match the resources of the Times. Alas, the economics of the Big Apple did it in.
- The Village Voice: This gritty weekly tabloid, also available at Wilkie’s, covered an underbelly of Gotham, with a strong emphasis on the arts and literary life. Its long stories would continue by jumping from page to page, if necessary. In effect, it came from another planet that somehow called to me.
- Christian Science Monitor: Another of the influences in my budding journalist mode, the Monitor by necessity couldn’t compete on breaking news deadlines. Instead, it stepped back a bit, took a longer, more thoughtful view, and presented its reports in a very orderly publication.
- Wall Street Journal: What caught me was its front-page “leaders,” three long stories each filling a column from the nameplate down before jumping inside. These were so thoroughly edited that reporters said they no longer recognized their own work, but the results were captivating and enlightening. I have a fondness for in-depth perspectives, and these delivered, sometimes on the most off-beat topics. Its layout, however, ran counter to mine, until someone pointed out to me how the Journal could be folded in quarters, to be read on the subway or commuter trains. That part was nifty.
- Chicago Daily News: When the Windy City had four papers, the Daily News had the calmest appearance. I imagine it played photos the best – not a given in that era – and it did have Mike Royko among its stable of writers. Also interesting to study were the competitive papers of Toronto’s press scene and then Montreal’s – the Globe and Mail made for a fine competitor to the New York Times.
- Louisville Courier-Journal: Bloomington, home of Indiana University, sits roughly midway between Indianapolis, the state capital, and Louisville, Kentucky, and the newspapers of those cities had major circulation and coverage of the campus. As a student at IU, my first impression of the CJ was cold and colorless, something that changed the more I came to trust its thoroughness and progressive stance. I quickly appreciated its uncluttered front page – just four or five stories in addition to a strong photograph – revolutionary at the time. Oh, and it had not just an editorial page cartoonist but one with his own unique style, one that wove the name of his wife into each cartoon. The CJ’s afternoon sister paper, the Louisville Times, stayed closer to home but was quite frisky in contrast. The archconservative Indianapolis Star, meanwhile, just felt stale, all the way around.
- New York Times: Once I was working in Upstate New York, the “Gray Old Lady” came more into my awareness. In the newsroom, we copy editors grabbed a quick look around 6:30 or 8, in a break of our own flow. It was at home or with friends on Sundays that I discovered the Times as a communal feast, with sections to be divvied up and then swapped. Arts was big for me, as was the books section and magazine.
- New York Daily News: Not my style but I did have to envy some of the snappy headlines or reader-oriented sass.
- Allentown Morning Call: In the mid-70s this Pennsylvania Dutch country paper took a huge leap in design and news presentation. It considered the front page as a poster, to be reconfigured as the day’s offerings required. Photojournalism was finally being taken seriously on its own merits, as the Call understood. At the heart of the project was the paper’s Lifestyle section cover and contents. The paper had the resources to splurge as it wished, without having to scrimp on essentials. I later worked for the man behind that tradition-breaking venture, though as he pointed out later, I was doing what a staff of 17 had in Allentown. No wonder I was burnt out.
