The Press: Race in Pittsburgh

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The Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh's only morning paper, was scooped on the story by the two afternoon papers, but it really didn't mind; it wanted the publicity. The story: the Post-Gazette was planning to start a Sunday edition next month.

Pittsburgh already has two Sunday papers: Hearst's Sun-Telegraph (circ. 600,000) and the Scripps-Howard Press (circ. 500,000). They politely doubted that there was room for three. Editor E. T. Leech of the Press welcomed the newcomer with a warning: it would start "under a heavy handicap ... in a race in which economic factors make it almost certain that only two can finish."

But Co-Publisher William Block and Editor Andrew Bernhard were dead set to make the Post-Gazette one of the two, if that was the way it had to be. Young (33), Yale-educated Bill Block inherited the paper from his father, the late Paul Block, in 1941.* He has been trying to cut its ties to the Republican Party and make it an "independent" paper ever since. Bernhard is a calm, competent veteran who came up the hard way.

Stranded and broke in Paris after World War I, Bernhard got his first newspaper job on the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune, after a period as a tourist guide. Later he was city editor of the Detroit Free Press, moved on to become managing editor of the Brooklyn Eagle, and five years ago went to Pittsburgh. Since then, the P-G has picked up 50,000 in circulation to hit a top of 300,000, has handily held its position as Pittsburgh's biggest daily. For his Sunday paper, Andy Bernhard has already signed up a new staff, and has bought Parade for his Sunday supplement. He also tripped up the Sun-Telegraph by taking away some of its best comic strips: Dick Tracy, Gasoline Alley, Terry (the PG, which runs them daily, snagged the Sunday rights too).

Like the daily Gazette, the Sunday edition will be "a very conventional job." Said Andy Bernhard: "We are just going to do seven days a week what we have been doing six."