Justice Dept. Studying Antitrust Issues : Miami News, City’s Oldest Daily, Closes

Staff members of the Miami News bid “Farewell, Miami” with their final banner headline and a newsroom champagne toast Saturday morning as Miami’s oldest daily--older than the city itself--shut down.

“It’s over,” said Howard Kleinberg, the News’ editor and an employee for 38 years. “I think we gave it a good effort.”

“This isn’t just another newspaper dying. It has a rich and proud history,” Publisher David Kraslow said. “Our influence far exceeded our circulation.”

Circulation Declines

The circulation of the crusading newspaper, winner of five Pulitzer Prizes, had declined 57% in a little more than two decades to about 48,000. The owner, Cox Enterprises Inc. of Atlanta, said it was unable to sell the News and was losing about $28,500 a day.

The Justice Department has said its antitrust division will look at the closing and whether Cox made a serious effort to sell the newspaper. But a federal judge Friday denied a private coalition’s effort to get an injunction against the closing.

The only apparent way to give the News a reprieve would be a Justice Department injunction.

Cox announced in October that the newspaper would be closed Dec. 31 if it was not sold. Under a recent amendment to a 1966 joint operating agreement with the Miami Herald, Cox would have become responsible in 1990 for the News’ operating losses.

But Cox will continue to share in profits of the Herald, a Knight-Ridder newspaper with a circulation of more than 400,000, through 2021 even with the News closed. Cox will earn an estimated $300 million through the agreement, the News reported Saturday.

Affects News Staff

The news staff, which numbered about 105 in recent weeks, is the main staff affected by the shutdown, since the business operation is shared with the Herald’s.

The News was born May 15, 1896, two months before the city was incorporated, as the Miami Metropolis. It lost some readers in the 1960s with its early, vigorous criticism of the Vietnam War.

Even with its employees job-hunting, the News broke several stories in its final days and was in the lead in reporting the Justice Department investigation and criticism of its own parent company.

“It was a damn good newspaper,” said columnist Mort Lucoff, 59, cleaning out his desk after 25 years at the newspaper. “It’s pretty wrenching. I put a quarter-century of life into this newspaper.”