Trials of the Trib

The long-ailing New York Herald Tribune, which has been busily expanding since brisk, 30-year-old Ogden ("Brownie") Reid stepped in as publisher last spring, had to pull in its belt this week. Five years after launching an 8 p.m. "Early Bird" edition in hopes of snaring readers from the Times (whose first edition does not hit the street until 10 p.m.), the Trib decided to drop it to save money. By pushing the first edition deadline back an hour, Brownie Reid also figures that staffers will have more time to fill out their stories, thus cut down makeover costs for later editions.

Brownie Reid has other troubles besides the Early Bird. In his eagerness to sweep out the cobwebs from the paper (TIME, April 18), he has also swept out much of the paper's oldtime esprit de corps. "In the past year," said one Trib veteran, "there has been complete unrest in the city room." The Trib has been losing many of its top staffers and promising younger newsmen. City Editor Fendall Yerxa quit, to be replaced (TIME, May 30) by hard-boiled Luke Carroll, onetime Trib Chicago correspondent. Close to a dozen other staffers, including John ("Tex") O'Reilly, Trib nature columnist and former war correspondent, have also recently left. By far the biggest loss to the Trib will be felt later this month, when the news staff's brightest star, Correspondent Homer Bigart, 47, two-time (1946, 1951) Pulitzer Prizewinner, moves over to the New York Times. Bigart, who had never worked for any other paper in 27 years as a newsman, admitted that he had "sweated blood" over the decision. Said an old friend: "Homer's resigning in complete rebellion against what's been happening."

A Matter of Standards. What is happening on the Trib? Many staffers feel that a business-minded management has gone all-out for circulation—with jazzed-up news coverage and contests such as "Tangle Towns" (TIME, Jan. 10) and its current "Bible Names"—at the expense of the paper's lofty, long-established editorial standards.

Brownie Reid is well aware that city-room morale has sagged. "But I'm sure they'll feel better when they get used to things," he said last week. "You can't make changes without some griping going on. I hope they're starting to feel that it's a question of a winning team v. a losing team."

If morale has taken a beating, the Trib has advanced on other fronts. Sports and financial coverage have been expanded. Weekday editions have been dressed up with an eye-catching, mint-green "third section" containing the features, sports and comics as part of a plan to compartmentalize the news for easier reading. By relying more heavily on wire-service coverage of top stories, e.g., last month's "wolf whistle" murder trial in Mississippi, the Trib has saved money, expanded features and local news coverage.

Right Diet? Weekday circulation, stimulated in part by contests, has climbed steadily in the past year to an estimated 400,000, up some 60,000 from last October. The Trib's new weekly TV and Radio Magazine is still losing money, but it has helped jack Sunday circulation to 600,000, v. 528,253 a year ago. And the Trib's advertising linage last week was running 10% ahead of last year's level.