Newspapers: Doing Without the Dailies

NEWSPAPERS Doing Without the Dailies

Boston's month-old newspaper strike sputtered out last week. During a 14-hour negotiating session with the unions, the publishers offered a fresh proposal on the controversial pension plan and gave hints of a wage boost as well.

"We've got enough unions to talk to from here to Chicago," said Boston Globe President John Taylor, referring to the eleven unions, which disagree on the kind of contract they want.

While they waited for the unions and the papers to compromise, Bostonians were getting their news in spurts. Sales of out-of-town papers rose sharply. The Sunday New York Times brought as much as $1.50 a copy. TV Guide sold like sweepstakes tickets. Television stations stepped up their coverage, and staffers of the Record American and the Herald-Traveler appeared on camera daily to read the news. Decked out in button-down TV-blue shirts, they no longer looked like the old city-room gang. Boston Globe reporters also tried TV, but gave it up. What with stumbling over their lines and never looking at the camera, they were making such a bad impression that they feared people would not read them once they got back into print.

Their concern was understandable, but Bostonians were obviously hungering for print. When WNAC-TV plastered subways and buses with posters of a newspaper overlayed with big black letters, "Tonight go home and read your Channel 7," one subway rider was spotted with his nose against a poster as he tried to decipher the fine print in the background of the ad.

He may soon get something meatier to read. At week's end, the publishers announced that they had reached a tentative settlement with the printers and mailers, leaders of the strike— who reportedly agreed to accept pay raises in lieu of increased fringe benefits. The agreement still must be ratified by the union membership. But with luck, Bostonians will be getting their fingers dirty again this week.