The Press: Short Takes

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¶A year ago, when he was promoted from Washington bureau chief to become the youngest managing editor in the Chicago Tribune's 125-year history, Russell Freeburg, then 47, seemed the certain heir to Editor Clayton Kirkpatrick, 57. His mission was to help brighten up the staid Trib and check its long circulation slide, from 868,000 to 745,000 in the past decade. Last week Freeburg resigned abruptly from one of the top jobs in journalism, explaining that he wanted "to do things faster than the corporate management wanted to move." His successor is Maxwell McCrohon, 43, an amiable Australian who first came to the U.S. in 1952 as a correspondent for a Sydney paper. He settled in Chicago nine years later and has brought plenty of flair to the Trib's afternoon sister, Chicago Today, as its managing editor for the past two years.

¶Media General, Inc., the Richmond-based communications conglomerate, has been forced to cut back its Media General Financial Daily to a weekly schedule. The chart-filled 72-page paper was begun last summer with a promise to report in detail on the performances and prospects of 3,250 separate stocks (TIME, Sept. 13). Targeted for a circulation of 10,000, it was selling only 2,500, mostly to stock market professionals. "We weren't getting any growth," laments Media General President Alan Donnahoe. "It was too much of an encyclopedia to digest every day." In hopes of better times, however, Donnahoe will keep the word "daily" in his weekly's title. ¶ In his swearing-in speech last week, Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo called for "an old-fashioned quest for jobs." His Honor has already delivered on that promise as far as the local press is concerned. Rizzo has signed up seven journalists for important city posts, including those of deputy municipal managing director and commerce director. The salaries range from $19,000 to $34,000—far more than they were making as newsmen. Rizzo, a tough-talking former police commissioner, has always shown a knack for cultivating local reporters. He has generally received a favorable press in Philadelphia, except from some editorial writers. The mayor sees nothing unusual in his recruitment policy: "Newsmen are perceptive and analytical. I never met one who wasn't sharp."