The Press: The Paper That Actually Came Out

No one could find his desk. Switch board operators, unfamiliar with the personnel, fouled up phone calls. Files were locked and the keys were missing. Page proofs were misplaced and lost for hours. Copy boys, new to the neighborhood, wasted precious time on the coffee run. Then, when the presses were finally ready to roll with the first issue of the World Journal Tribune last week, pressmen balked at the, plan to have Mayor Lindsay press the starting button. After all, he is not a union man.

Before Lindsay left and some dues-paying pressman pushed the button, an hour of printing time was lost. But at last the WJT appeared. Stabbing the air with one of the first copies, Editor Frank Conniff exclaimed with proud surprise: "This paper actually came out."

Makeup Mishaps. It came out to the tune of 900,000 copies a day, and every day the newsstands quickly sold out to a public curious for a look at the paper that had existed for so long only in plans and promises. For the most part, the public was not disappointed. The WJT, reported the Washington Post, has a look of "lively respectability—sober enough for the suburbs and sharp enough for the subways." The paper's four sections averaged a fat total of 60 pages, enough to keep a male commuter occupied all the way home. And there were more than enough features that his wife might want to read too. All of which was not lost on advertisers, who seemed to be giving the new daily a cordial welcome.

Composition was neat and attractive, marred only by muddied pictures that reflected some kinks in the engraving process. Here and there, the makeup seemed out of whack. A write-up of city firemen's beefs found room in the women's pages; on the first page of the second section, four humorous columns surrounded a somber piece about women convicts. Such gaffes only reflected a first-week confusion. "Those stories were in type," explained Conniff. "We simply had to put them somewhere."

Signs of Life. Unsure of their motley staff, editors have thus far been uncertain about assignments—mainly in the city itself, the home town for which the WJT promised exciting coverage. But if local reporting is still weak, there are signs that the paper's reporters are beginning to dig.

As expected, there were days when the supply of columnists seemed almost suffocating. Most performed predictably: Joseph Alsop was back full of high optimism about the war in Viet Nam; Henry J. Taylor took up space with a familiar complaint about undercover "Red spies" at the U.N. Others lent the paper a noticeable lift. Dick Schaap and Jimmy Breslin took a fresh look at the opening of the city's schools and a dress rehearsal at the Metropolitan opera. Society Columnist Suzy Knickerbocker was at her caustic best:

"And how about that nice simple sweet American lady who had coronets embroidered on her panties the minute she married that count? Apparently her title didn't go to her head."