Word: felker
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...flow, the News and the parent Chicago Tribune Co. decided to seek a new readership among New York commuters and affluent Manhattan residents. They launched Tonight as a sophisticated answer to Rupert Murdoch's sensation-mongering New York Post, which had the afternoon market all to itself. Clay Felker, who had founded New York magazine, was brought in as editor, and scores of new writers, editors and graphics artists were recruited...
...first it was so badly organized that it was hard to find regular features. Says one former staffer: "They started Tonight on Aug. 18. By Labor Day it was clear that management was already uncomfortable with the paper." Tonight underwent a major cutback and editorial overhaul in June, when Felker departed. Some of the paper's special sections were cut in half and distribution to outlying suburban areas was curtailed. As Hunt put it later: "Storm clouds were coming up in the financial numbers." In recent weeks Tonight staffers who queried editors about the paper's future were...
...Tonight was supposed to halt the News's circulation losses (450,000 since 1975) by adding "up-scale" readers and advertisers to the morning tabloid's traditional blue-collar audience. A flotilla of special sections and dozens of new feature writers and columnists were deployed under Clay Felker, 52, the founder of New York and New West. Said Robert M. Hunt, president and publisher of the News: "This is an extraordinary undertaking intended to make a great newspaper even greater...
...months later, the once mighty News is staggering. News Editor Michael O'Neill announced last week that Felker will no longer edit Tonight, because he wants to pursue "outside interests." Felker's shift to consultant status was greeted with relief by some in the newsroom; they had feared that Chicago's Tribune Co., owner of the Daily News, was preparing to shut down Tonight-or even sell the News. The Hearst Corp. reportedly has turned down an opportunity to buy the News, though spokesmen for both companies deny it. In any case, O'Neill...
Tonight was plagued by a lack of editorial coordination. Coverage was too frequently duplicated (five entertainment editors, seven gossip writers). Many veteran staffers resented the Felker recruits, contemptuously labeled "boutique journalists" by Bareknuckle Columnist Jimmy Breslin. Bad planning and production problems turned the revamped multisection paper into an incomprehensible jumble; it became a challenge just to find the old pictorial centerfold, and a near impossibility to locate the TV listings...