The Happiest Editor on Earth? Disney

Anthea Disney once described Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. as “a gigantic mom and pop store--and we all know who Pop is.” It’s the kind of place, she added, where people “don’t question my authority. They assume I have it.”

Indeed, people inside and outside Murdoch’s publishing, broadcasting and movie empire have long recognized that Disney’s authority is endowed by Pop himself. She has produced Fox TV’s “A Current Affair,” edited TV Guide and last summer moved to a third Murdoch property, becoming editor in chief of Delphi Internet Service Corp., which recently put iGuide on line.

Last weekend, she was shifted again as Murdoch named her the new president and CEO of HarperCollins, his giant book-publishing company effective April 8. Disney will succeed George Craig, who had integrated the British publisher William Collins with the former Harper & Row after Murdoch bought the latter in 1987.

Given Disney’s wide-ranging background, which also includes stints as editor in chief of Self and Us magazines and a position at the Daily News, industry observers expect that she will serve Murdoch’s wish to bring HarperCollins into closer concert with News Corp.’s mass-market interests.

HarperCollins published John Gray’s “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus,” one of the biggest sellers in recent years, and the company’s ReganBooks imprint has had a magic touch. At the same time, there’s a sense in the industry that HarperCollins’ editorial identity has become hazy and that the company has slipped in the race for big books behind such players as Random House, Simon & Schuster, Bantam Doubleday Dell and the reinvigorated William Morrow & Co., which has been writing large checks.

“Anthea Disney’s appointment seems a case of Rupert Murdoch, who runs a media empire, being more comfortable with someone closer to his vision of how to integrate HarperCollins with his other businesses,” said Roger Cooper, a veteran publisher who is now editorial director of the Doubleday Book Clubs. “Murdoch may believe the company is too separate or tied to some old-fashioned thinking.”

“I think it’s great, I’m thrilled she’s coming,” said Judith Regan,whose ReganBooks has two books on bestseller lists: Howard Stern’s “Miss America” and actress Fran Drescher’s “Enter Whining.” “People who are born into publishing often have a myopic view of the industry and a rigid sense of how things should be done.”

Random House publisher Harold M. Evans, who worked for Murdoch in the early 1980s as editor of the Times of London, said that his former boss “wanted a really strong editorial person at HarperCollins because he recognizes that the heart of a publishing house is editorial.”

As for the profit-and-loss responsibilities that go with the job of publisher, Evans added: “It’s not atomic science. What’s important is getting a feel for the Zeitgeist, figuring out what books will work and how to make John Grisham fall in love with you.”

Hot Tools: These are not the Oscars of the magazine industry, which ranks the National Magazine Awards as its highest honors. But to earn a spot on Adweek’s annual listing of the “10 Hottest Magazines” gives a publication a coveted selling tool in media circles.

Martha Stewart Living leads Adweek’s Top 10 of 1995 as a result of a surge in ad revenue, number of ad pages and circulation, which rose 52.8%, to 1.4 million copies. The 4-year-old celebrant of homemaking and do-it-yourself design was followed by Men’s Health, Better Homes and Gardens, Allure and SmartMoney.

Rounding out the list were Country Living, Newsweek, Conde Nast Traveler, Entertainment Weekly and Prevention.

Adweek, which published the list in this week’s issue, makes its choices based on revenues and circulation figures, as well as interviews with media buyers and the judgment of its editors.

Afterwords: Cal Ripken, the Baltimore Orioles shortstop who shattered a Major League record in September when he played in his 2,131st consecutive game, is writing his autobiography for Penguin USA. Plans call for the Viking division to publish the hardcover in the spring of 1997. In addition, Dial Books for Young Readers will bring out an illustrated edition.

Meanwhile, Peter Golenbock, who has written extensively about the New York Yankees, is one of the first on the diamond this year with a new baseball book. Golenbock’s “Wrigleyville,” a 523-page, interview-laden history of the Chicago Cubs, is published by St. Martin’s Press.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Thursdays.