The Press: Return of a Gossip

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Washington, which dearly loves its gossip, has had to do without Walter Winchell's small chatter for nearly two years. Cissie Patterson dropped him from her Times-Herald and no other Washington paper would sign him on. This week Winchell's gossip column was back in the capital, but in a place where few Washingtonians would see it.

Winchell's chin-chopper column is the chief attraction of a curious new daily paper, the U.S. Journal, which made its first appearance this week. The Journal is about the size, shape and glossiness of Vogue but has only eight pages, costs a dime, and expects to break even if it sells only 10,000 copies. It is edited by Edward Maher, until recently the editor of Liberty. Maher hopes to cram the Journal with backdoor stuff, chitchat and personality stories. Says he: "When the other papers are covering 'big' developments, we'll be working behind the scenes at the other end of town. What is little to other dailies will be big to us." Editor Maher expects that lobbyists, federal employees and Congressmen will eat it up. He intends to give out only one free copy a day—to the White House.