Word: ratliff
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Employees of the Cincinnati Enquirer (circ. 202,951), led by Reporter James H. Ratliff Jr., made U.S. press history three years ago by raising the cash to take over their own paper (for $7,600,000) to save it from being sold to the rival Taft-owned Cincinnati Times-Star. For his leadership, Ratliff won front-page stories, became vice president and secretary of the company. Last week the Enquirer ran another story on Ratliff on page six. He had been "removed" from those jobs, thereby touching off a new and bitter fight for control of the city...
...Ratliff was fired as an officer (but not as a columnist and board member) by the company board. It is headed by 61-year-old Roger Ferger, who held the same top job under the old regime, the McLean estate, and was also a key figure in the paper's purchase by its employees. Ratliff himself gave the most outspoken statement of the board's reasons: "They say I was fired for 'disloyalty, conspiracy to undermine normal channels, attempts to stampede and coerce, persistently fomenting discord . . .' I deny these charges." Instead, the veteran newsman accused...
Eaton's role as an angel, said Reporter . Jim Ratliff, who led the employees' committee, will "end in a clean break as soon as we pay him off." Eaton, a political enemy of Senator Bob Taft, will be paid a fee (estimated at $250,000) for his financing help, may get it in stock if the employees so decide. Said Ratliff, "The paper's in our hands. Eaton will not control us now or then...
...plans no changes in the prosperous paper. Its boss will continue to be Roger H. Ferger, publisher and now also president of the new corporation. Even the Enquirer's support of Senator Taft for the Republican nomination will continue. "This wasn't a revolt of employees," explained Ratliff. "It was a movement to preserve a famous independent newspaper...
...anticipate any such controversy .. . The cost of production has gone steadily up, and newspaper earnings have gone considerably down. Ownership of the Enquirer lost a great deal of its attractiveness for us." But Scripps-Howard's Cincinnati Post, the city's third daily, doffed its hat to Ratliff's committee. Said the Post: "What many of us had thought could not happen, did happen. This show of enterprise . . . by a band of newspaper employees must be regarded as little short of phenomenal...