The Press: Shake-up at Look

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As circulation director of Look, able Vice President S. O. (for Samuel Oliver) Shapiro, 51, is a power. Onetime circulation boss of Macfadden Publications, Shapiro bubbles with ideas about how to sell Look and how to edit it. Last year, after Dana Tasker resigned as executive editor of TIME and became editorial director of Look (TIME, Jan. 26), President & Editor Gardner ("Mike") Cowles told Look's staff that Tasker would "be the top editorial executive of the company." Tasker believes that the editorial department should be completely independent and not a satellite of the circulation department. But "Shap" Shapiro, a popular and determined "results player," could point to a slight dip in Look's newsstand sales to support his contrary view.

Last week the difference gave Look a wholesale shake-up in its top editorial staff. Since President Cowles leaned towards Shapiro's view of how Look should be run, Tasker abruptly resigned. Into his place went an old Look hand, Dan Mich, 49, who had resigned in 1950 as executive editor of Look to become editorial director of McCall's (circ. 4,525,060). Because Cowles wanted "to give Mich a free hand in selecting his assistants," Look's Executive Editor William Lowe and Managing Editor Les Midgley resigned with Tasker. New Editorial Director Mich, whose salary at Look is close to $50,000 a year, will have a healthy magazine to work on. Look's 1953 advertising revenue was $23 million, highest in its history (up from $6,000,000 in 1946), and its new circulation guarantee is at an alltime high: 3,700,000.