Hamill Returns   

Pete Hamill , the new editor in chief of the New York Daily News , says that, like a basketball coach, he doesn't like to give away his game plan before the opening whistle. But the veteran of the Big Apple's tabloid wars can't stop himself from talking about his plans.

"There's not enough humor in the paper to start with," he says. And, he adds, the paper's writing has to be sharper, brighter. The tab needs more personality, he says, adding, "it can't be all gloom and doom."

The new editor also is determined to widen the paper's reach. "We have to address two major audiences: women and immigrants," he says. "Any newspaper audience is a coalition of readers. You need to have enough in it to attract certain readers."

Hamill, 61, started out at the New York Post in 1960 as a night reporter, eventually netting his own column. He defected to the Daily News, was a columnist for the late New York Newsday , made his way back to the Post, and also found time to write seven novels and a memoir, and to edit a paper in Mexico City.

Both the Daily News and Hamill have experienced their share of turmoil in recent years. The paper has seen a steady stream of top editors pass through, and Hamill endured a brief, stormy stint as editor of the New York Post under the mercurial Abe Hirschfeld . But the Brooklyn-born tab veteran anticipates no problem with his new boss, owner Mortimer B. Zuckerman .

"Why," Hamill asks, "would I, at my age, go work for someone I don't like? I could be off somewhere writing novels."