The Press: What the Doctor Ordered?

In New York's Harlem, the world's biggest Negro community, the weekly Amsterdam News speaks with a loud voice. But when the Negro-owned-and-staffed News hiked its price from 10¢ to 15¢ in 1946, its voice began to quaver as circulation slipped from a peak of 110,000 to around 65,000. In an effort to get the frog out of its throat, the News made a drastic change: for the first time in its 41-year history, it hired a white man as its managing editor. The News's new boss: New York-born Stanley Ross, 36, onetime Latin American stringer for A.P. and the New York Times, occasional platform lecturer. He also had an unsuccessful career as a "doctor" to ailing newspapers from Lake Charles, La. to Wilmington, Del. before he saw the Amsterdam News's ad in Editor & Publisher, got the job.