Publishers Party, but Stay Serious : Society: Networking and noshing were order of evening at American Newspaper Publishers Assn.’s reception.
Newspaper publishers from tiny markets rubbed shoulders with publishing giants as they broke bread and networked at a reception Monday night after the first day of business at the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. conference.
About 1,400 newspaper executives and their spouses met in the courtyard at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for a buffet reception sponsored by Times Mirror Co. and the Los Angeles Times. They also previewed the upcoming Thomas Hart Benton exhibit of paintings and were treated to a wine tasting sponsored by the Wine Institute of California.
At a lavish buffet that included shrimp curry, nouvelle sausages, a California pizza bar and that L.A. food staple, sushi, the execs found time to trade some ideas.
That’s not always the case among publishers. Said Will Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner: “Newspaper people don’t tend to share their performance results on a casual basis, but at an annual convention there’s a little more candor and people compare notes and trade information.”
There was even a touch of glasnost to the evening. Among the guests was Vladimir Voina of USA Magazine in Moscow who is the first Nieman Fellow from the Soviet Union. Voina is in the United States for seven months to study the country and write for American publications.
While so far he said he has enjoyed meeting and working with American editors, he added that “the only thing that does not satisfy me is that everyday life in the Soviet Union is not covered fully (by the American press). I may even say it’s totally ignored, with some rare exceptions.
“All my life,” he said, “I was a reader of the America press . . . and my whole life has been devoted to American studies, including the press. This is my first chance to see the captains of the American press, the people who are making this world work. It’s a fascinating experience.”
The realities of the publishing business seemed to be in the forefront of most conversations. Information was traded on illiteracy, recycling and a slump in advertising revenues as guests filtered in and out of the museum’s galleries and huddled under heat lamps in the courtyard.
“One of the things people are talking about,” said Tony Ridder, president of Knight-Ridder, is the fact that the newspaper business is soft now, and profits at most public companies like ours are down. There’s a lot of talk about what’s going on in the overall economy and about newspaper readership. We’ve been working on a prototype for young readers, trying to get younger readers back into newspapers.”
Ridder added that illiteracy and education are “very very serious problems that the President of the United States is not addressing. He calls himself an education President, but I don’t think there’s much action.”
Ruth S. Holmberg, publisher of the Chattanooga Times, had been on the literacy panel that day. “We were discussing the role newspapers can play, being a catalyst,” she said. “They were talking about the different programs the newspapers put on and how we can make a difference. I think programs at most papers are still being shaped.”
The Washington Post’s Donald Graham said that his paper’s efforts to combat illiteracy include “trying to pour ourselves into D.C. public schools. We have a program we’ve done with them for 12 years where the Post is actually used as a reading textbook in elementary schools to teach kids how to read. I think public schooling in general is something that any sensible newspaper person ought to be deeply concerned about.”
Literacy and recycling were two issues that concerned Monte Trammer, publisher of the Saratogian in Saratoga, N.Y.
“We come out here to sort of steal ideas from each other,” he said with a grin. “We’re all worried about the same sorts of things. . . . If we really are providing information to the masses, then I think we ought to do something about helping.”
Other guests at the reception included Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, and Deputy Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.; Denny Wofford and Jeff Reimer of Western Colorprint in Laguna Beach; Houston Post publisher Dean Singleton and wife Adrienne; John E. Cox Jr., president of the Foundation for American Communications; Gary Shorts, publisher of the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call; Louis D. Boccardi, president and general manager of Associated Press.
