Revolution at the Trib

Said a New York Herald Tribune staffer: "There is a not-so-quiet revolution going on at our paper." The revolutionist: 29-year-old Ogden ("Brownie") Reid Jr., youngest publisher of a big daily in the U.S. and one of the most assured. Only a month ago, when his mother, Helen Rogers Reid, named him president of the paper and his elder brother Whitelaw ("Whitey"), 41, stepped upstairs to be chairman of the board (TIME, April 18), she insisted that her two sons would run the Trib as "a team." But the team plan vanished quickly. From the day he took over, Brownie Reid has set in motion the biggest overhaul the Trib has undergone in years. Whitey Reid is off in California on a long vacation.

Some of the changes were internal. Last week Publisher Reid summoned his news staff to the city room and announced the latest round. For one thing, there was a hole to fill on the staff. City Editor Fendall Yerxa, whose authority has gradually been sapped and his staff cut out from under him, had resigned to become executive editor of the Wilmington (Del.) News and Journal-Every Evening. Into his place Brownie put Luke Carroll, 39, veteran (13 years) Trib staffer and its onetime Chicago correspondent, who will also continue as news editor. Brownie had an even bigger announcement. He was pulling Trib Managing Editor Everett Walker, 48, off the daily paper entirely, moving him over to pep up the Sunday Trib, which has long been one of the Reids' biggest problems. Sunday Editor Joe Herzberg, who had got the same assignment three years ago (but little power to carry it out), will become associate Sunday editor.

Man from Milwaukee. Brownie did not name a new managing editor for the Trib; he did not need one. When he became boss last month, onto the paper came Frank Taylor, longtime ad and promotion man on Seattle newspapers and former publisher of Hearst's Milwaukee Sentinel. Trib staffers thought that Taylor was coming in primarily on the business side. But Executive Vice President Taylor quickly set them straight.

Taylor runs the Page One conference, can decide the play of news, make staff changes, is operating boss of the paper (except for the editorial page) under Brownie. Together, they are transforming the Trib, with new entertainment features, splashier makeup, a new contest called "Treasuregrams." and a heavier emphasis on "reader-interest" stories.

Many an old Trib hand takes a dim view of the changes. One complaint is that during the Trib's belt-tightening close to 20 reporters have left its city staff alone, a one-third reduction. Some Trib staffers hold Brownie largely responsible. Although he has been in complete command only for a month, he has been running the paper's finances for more than a year, when he returned from Paris after putting the European edition of the Trib handsomely in the black.

Course Change. Brownie Reid is not surprised at the feeling of unrest at the Trib. But he thinks that the new diet is working fine. Unless there are unforeseen setbacks, says he, the Trib should finish the year well in the black for the first time in four years. Circulation and advertising are up, and he has big plans for expanding the paper's general news coverage, sports, features and business and financial news. The first issue of the new Sunday pocket-sized TV magazine (TIME, May 23) was a "big success," and Brownie hopes to syndicate it nationally.

Will his new formula for the Trib work? Most Trib staffers and newsmen on other papers are willing to wait and see. They realize that the Trib has been drifting for so long that it needs a new, firm course. Trib staffers devoutly hope that Brownie has picked the right one.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.