The Press: Make Us an Offer

Cincinnati's biggest newspaper was up for sale last week. Not because it was losing money, but because it was worth so much. The 107-year-old morning Enquirer (circ. 164,700 daily, 235,000 Sunday) was on the block.

Under the will of John Roll McLean, who made the Enquirer "Ohio's bible," the paper was to remain in trust for his heirs,* along with his mines and real estate. But if the paper increased in value to the point where it was out of balance with the rest of the estate, the trustees were to consider selling it. They thought the Enquirer had reached that point; it made around $1,000,000 last year, and the market was probably at a peak.

The trustees quietly sent the Enquirer's operating statement to "a small, selected group of well-qualified people," who were invited to submit sealed bids. Among the prospective bidders: Hulbert Taft, cousin of Senator Bob Taft and operator of the 108-year-old Cincinnati Times-Star; Chain Publisher Frank Gannett; the Ridder brothers of Manhattan and Minnesota; and portly Publisher Silliman Evans of the Nashville Tennessean. Enquirer Publisher Roger Ferger, 54, who joined the staff as advertising manager in 1920, may enter a bid himself, backed by local capital. And Newspaper Broker Smith Davis had others on the string.

Editorially, the slow-footed Enquirer is outboxed by the nimble Scripps-Howard Post, which recently backed a successful local campaign to keep proportional representation, over Enquirer opposition. And it still suffers from typographical schizophrenia: modern headlines adjoin archaic one-word holdovers of Civil War days. But the Enquirer can afford to move slowly; it has a monopoly on the morning field. There was a fair chance that the Enquirer's trustees had put too high a price on the paper. Bids, due May 15, might not come within a mile of the $10 million the trustees hoped for.