Bylines   

Death in the Afternoon

The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel are merging. The morning Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will debut in April, making Brew City – one of the few places where the p.m. paper had remained dominant – the newest one-paper town. Citing the ever-increasing cost of newsprint (see "The Business of Journalism," page 56) and the declining circulation of the afternoon Journal as reasons for the merger, Robert A. Kahlor , chairman and CEO of Journal Communications, Inc., and publisher of the new paper, says, "I have always maintained that the market would tell us when it was time to make a change in our newspapers. That time has come." Unfortunately, the time has also come to reduce the workforce of the two papers by 200 full time employees and between 500 and 700 part-timers. As the merger nears, morale is described by one Journal staffer as being as low as it's ever been, despite what management had touted as a "generous" buyout offer amounting to one week's pay per year employed. Apparently many staffers didn't like hearing the news of the merger from local talk show host Mark Belling a week before it was announced in the newsroom. Journal Editor Mary Jo Meisner will have the same role at the combined paper while her counterpart at the Sentinel, Keith Spore , will oversee the editorial pages.

A New Director

Evelyn Hsu , assistant editor of weeklies for the Washington Post since 1992 and former president of the Asian American Journalists Association, joins the American Press Institute as an associate director. Hsu was also vice president of last summer's Unity '94 conference in Atlanta.

Inside Magazines

Two new black history magazines debut. One, Legacy , is part of a joint venture between American Heritage and RJR Communications and will have 250,000 copies distributed through churches in addition to regular subscriptions. African-American History Magazine , which will celebrate black accomplishments in the arts, launches as an annual... From KPMG Peat Marwick comes Worldbusiness magazine, a publication devoted to coverage of international business news and trends. The glossy quarterly starts up under Editor John Van Doorn , onetime editor in chief of Business Month ... Scientific American promotes Associate Editor John Rennie to editor in chief, making him only the third person to hold the job since 1948... The New Yorker promotes former managing editor Pamela Maffei McCarthy to deputy editor, and names Bill Buford , editor of the London-based literary quarterly Granta for the past 15 years, fiction and literary editor. Both are taking positions formerly held by Charles McGrath , now at the New York Times Book Review. Dorothy Wickenden , formerly national affairs editor at Newsweek, succeeds McCarthy.

On the Infobahn

Melvin debuts on the Internet, hyping itself as "the first Internet publication that boasts entirely new content every issue." The biweekly will focus on humor and entertainment... The Boston Globe creates a subsidiary to develop interactive news and advertising services, Boston Globe Electronic Publishing, Inc., and plans to premier its first interactive product later this year... Meanwhile, the World Wide Web continues to be the hot spot for publications making graphic inroads through cyberspace. "The Web," a hypertext network within the Internet, combines electronic "pages" of information with graphics, text, video and sound. Just about anyone can produce his or her own Web site, making it extremely attractive to news outlets, which can use the Web to reach a larger audience than could be reached through commercial online services alone. Among the latest to be spinning their Webs are the San Jose Mercury News , Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News , not to mention AJR (see page 13).

The Nation's New Faces

Founded in 1865 by abolitionists, America's oldest weekly magazine, The Nation , announces a change of ownership that will have actor Paul Newman partially funding the liberal opinion journal. A group of investors headed by Editor Victor Navasky , who will now become publisher and editorial director, and including Newman and novelist E.L. Doctorow , purchased the magazine from Arthur Carter , who had owned it since 1985. Navasky says the magazine plans to "reconceive itself" editorially, though not politically, adding new features such as a "right-wing watch" that will include a regular audit of the "talk-radio right" and the "Christian right." Katrina vanden Heuvel , who served as acting editor of the magazine during 1994 while Navasky was on leave to write a book, becomes editor.

Doing Good

At Newhouse News Service , Constance Casey launches a "Doing Good" beat focusing on "good works" and the people who do them. Casey says she's looking for subjects who have "risen to a challenge." So far she's highlighted a woman who established the pediatric AIDS clinic at Johns Hopkins hospital and people who train dogs to rescue victims buried under earthquake rubble. Casey, former book editor at the San Jose Mercury News , says the beat grew out of her frustration "with vague talk about how we have to reform welfare and help homeless people." She set out to "find someone who has found what works and is persistent in making it work."

Around Newspapers

The Philadelphia Tribune , the country's oldest continuously published African American newspaper, names Irving Randolph managing editor and Sharyn Flanagan city editor... Will Hearst steps down as editor and publisher of the San Francisco Examiner to join a venture capital firm specializing in technology. Hearst's grandfather, William Randolph Hearst , founded the Examiner, not to mention the entire Hearst media empire... J. Randolph Murray , assistant managing editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal , becomes executive editor of the Anniston Star in Alabama.... Scott Ware leaves the San Juan Star to become editor of the Albuquerque Tribune .... At the Daily Press in Newport News, Virginia, Will F. Corbin moves up from managing editor to editor.... Veteran Miami Herald editor Bill Greer moves northward to the Palm Beach Post , where he will be news editor.... Ann Marie Lipinski is appointed managing editor for news at the Chicago Tribune , the first woman managing editor in Tribune history.

Insiders

The Securities and Exchange Commission files a civil action against Thomas J. Farrell , president of Gannett New Media Group and chairman of USA Today Sky Radio ; Frank J. Vega , president and CEO of Detroit Newspapers, Inc., the agent for the joint operating agreement between the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News ; and four others, alleging that they engaged in illegal insider trading. The SEC complaint charges Farrell with purchasing 6,500 shares of Rochester Community Savings Bank common stock while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the bank's acquisition, then tipping off his friends. Farrell has resigned and Vega, without admitting wrongdoing, signed a consent decree agreeing to give up his profits from the arrangement and pay a civil penalty equal to the profits. Vega remains as CEO in Detroit, though Gannett has removed him from its newspaper operating committee. ( Reported by Lynn H. Ehrle )

Paying Back

The Freedom Forum settles with the New York state attorney general's office, which for the past three years had been reviewing its spending policies. The settlement, which deals primarily with expenditures during the late 1980s when the organization was called the Gannett Foundation, includes an agreement by the Freedom Forum to adopt a new set of guidelines emphasizing cost-consciousness. The Freedom Forum's 14 trustees, including columnist Carl Rowan and former astronaut Alan Shepard , will pay the Freedom Forum $10,000 apiece of their own money as restitution. Only seven were board members at the time of the disputed spending on building and furnishing the $15 million Freedom Forum World Center headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. According to Chairman Allen H. Neuharth , the Freedom Forum settled to "avoid a long and costly court case." The organization sponsors overseas programs promoting freedom of speech and the press, as well as journalism education initiatives here and abroad. Freedom Forum President and CEO Charles Overby says the settlement "ensures that the new and expanded programs and priorities of the foundation will continue without interruption."

TV Talk

Joseph Peyronnin , the number two executive at CBS News , resigns unexpectedly after 25 years with the network, saying that he is looking into opportunities to run a network news division... Investigative reporter Brooks Jackson leaves CNN 's special assignment unit to cover the changing face of Congress. "CNN is giving me the privilege of covering the political story of a lifetime," says Jackson. "The Republican takeover of Congress for the first time in 40 years is the equivalent of a revolution."