The Press: Birth of the S/or

The wonder is that booming Puerto Rico, an island with some 700,000 English-speaking residents, 1,500 new settlers (plus 230,000 tourists) from the U.S. each year, and a growing movement for U.S. statehood, has not a single English-language daily newspaper. San Juan's big Spanish daily, El Mundo, tried the idea twice, most recently in 1957, dropped the venture when circulation failed to exceed 7,000. Last week there was another entrant: U.S. Publisher Gardner ("Mike") Cowles (Look magazine, Des Moines Register and Tribune) announced publication of an English-language daily, the San Juan Star. First issue: Nov. 2.

Cowles will leave direct supervision to Editor-Publisher William J. Dorvillier, 51, a Massachusetts-born journalist, who in 1953 started a weekly newsletter in San Juan for businessmen interested in the island. The tabloid Star will be printed six days a week on the presses of El Impartial, San Juan's second Spanish daily, will be aimed more at English-speaking residents than tourists. Hoped-for circulation: 15,000 in eight months.