Editors & Publishers: The Captain Takes Command

The sudden and unexpected death of Newsday's hard-driving Editor Alicia Patterson in 1963 left her husband, Captain Harry F. Guggenheim, with a tough problem: Who could be brought in to run the suburban afternoon daily he had founded for his wife? To almost everyone's surprise, the job went to the first person who expressed an interest: Captain Harry himself.

The Captain was already 72 at the time. During his wife's career he had concentrated largely on the business aspects of publishing and left the editorial product almost entirely to her. Aware that he had much to learn, he brought his old friend, former Louisville Courier-Journal Editor Mark Ethridge, out of retirement to become editor of Newsday and teach him the ropes. And by last year, Captain Harry was ready. Ethridge returned to retirement and Newsday's new boss assumed the title of editor as well as president and publisher. Today, at 76, he energetically discharges all three duties. Under his control, the paper's circulation has risen from 370,000 to 415,000; its already bulging advertising has increased 7%.

Sharp Angles. The basic formula for success remains unchanged from Alicia's day: a skillful mix of local, national and foreign coverage, almost always clearly and concisely written. Newsday's reporting of state politics, for example, is consistently more searching than that of the New York City dailies. "A story for this paper has to be angled sharply," explains Executive Editor Alan Hathway. "The morning papers have had a shot at it, television has had a shot at it. We have to assume one of two things: no one has seen the story or read anything; or they have both seen and read about it. Either way we have an extra job to do, and that is depth. In effect, we combine the first-and second-day story."

As a result, the 252 editorial staffers who turn out Newsday are trained on the job in the paper's brisk style. Though Newsday is published just outside New York City, it has hired few experienced reporters from New York publications. "We get our best people from middle-sized papers in middle-sized towns," says Hathway. "Towns like Charlotte, N.C., or Columbus, Ohio, have given us better reporters," adds Managing Editor Bill Mcllwain. "They're a little bit hungrier, and they don't come on like a bunch of old China hands doing you a favor."

Breezy Irreverence. Around Newsday these days, everyone takes his job with a new seriousness. Gone is the breezy irreverence that the staff used to associate with "Miss P," who delighted in twitting Long Island's moneyed aristocracy and even her own advertisers. Advertisers are no more likely to push the Captain around, but neither is he likely to let his editors goad an advertiser into canceling a contract. Though he directs operations with imaginative skill, he is not especially at home in the newsroom, and keeps his distance from his shirtsleeve staff.