Press: The Best Papers Under the Sun

In Florida, competition breeds quality, not cheap sensation

America's sprawling geography has not lent itself to the development of national newspapers, except the specialized Wall Street Journal. Yet there has been a vigorous tradition of dominant statewide papers: the Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky, the Des Moines Register in Iowa, the Minneapolis Tribune in Minnesota. In the past that list would have featured the Miami Herald, which offered home delivery through most of Florida. But in the years since 1973, as the Herald became even better and Florida grew substantially more populous, circulation of the "state" paper rose a modest 4%.

The Herald has been challenged in market after market by lively, news-hustling papers with just half, or sometimes little more than a tenth, of its circulation—though it is still thriving editorially and financially. The competition has bred quality, not cheap sensation. Paper after paper in Florida is graphically vivid, diligent in pursuit of local news, quick to dispatch reporters on breaking stories and dedicated to muckraking. Says David Burgin, a veteran of the New York Herald-Tribune, Washington Star and three newspaper chains, who was named six weeks ago as editor of the Orlando Sentinel Star: "When you assess the quality at every level, including the weeklies, this is the best newspaper state in the country. Even the bad papers are good."

Florida's excellence has been aided by four traits peculiar to the state. First is its geography. As Burgin notes, Florida is "long and skinny, and nobody is very far away from somebody else." Almost every publisher faces a rival whose territory stretches to within a town or two of his own. Second, many of the new arrivals are affluent and thus are enticing to advertisers; many others are elderly and loyal, lifelong readers of newspapers. Third is the tourist trade, which in smaller markets can augment circulation by as much as 30%. Fourth is a tradition of operating papers as public institutions, not just money-making machines, set by the late owners of the two biggest and best Florida dailies, John Knight of the Herald and Nelson Poynter of the St. Petersburg Times.

In the past two

decades, eight Florida papers have won Pulitzer Prizes, more than in any other state. When asked to rank the state's best newspapers, Florida journalists usually cite, in order:

> Miami Herald (circ. 400,000). The Herald's editorial staff of 450 is almost twice as big as any other in the state; it produces zoned editions for city neighborhoods and suburbs, a daily version translated into Spanish, and a special Latin American edition distributed to 40 cities in 31 countries. The Herald covers Latin America and the Caribbean as well as any paper in the U.S. Says Executive Editor John McMullan: "If you don't put out a good newspaper in Florida, somebody else will."