Newspapers

SAN FRANCISCO - A multimillionaire newspaper subscriber who sued to block the merger of San Francisco's last two metropolitan daily newspapers has opened a door on the deal-making and political power struggles in this city. The case took on new dimensions for newspaper people May 1, when Timothy O. White, publisher of the Hearst-owned Examiner, suggested in federal court that he had been willing to treat Mayor Willie Brown less critically in his paper's editorials in exchange for the mayor's support for Hearst's plan to buy the more successful Chronicle.

JAMES GASHEL talks about newspapers with a passion. "Newspapers are probably the most important public channel of communicating ideas in a free society," he proclaims. Mr. Gashel, who is blind, first got access to daily newspapers four years ago through a telephone service operated by the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind. "I couldn't read a newspaper until I was 50 years old," he explains. Thanks to $4 million in congressional funding, the Newsline telephone service will soon be available to 11 million blind and sight-impaired Americans, regardless of location.

Opponents of staff cuts at newspapers owned by the Tribune Co., including The Sun and the Los Angeles Times, fanned out yesterday in downtown Baltimore to press their case that the reductions will compromise the press' ability to serve as society's watchdog. An activist from MoveOn Media Action, which has criticized cutbacks at eight Tribune newspapers, told The Sun that the nationwide campaign will continue until the Chicago company stops reducing staffs to save money. This year, Tribune has cut about 800 positions at eight of its newspapers, including Newsday, The Hartford Courant and the Chicago Tribune.

The Sun posted among the highest percentage circulation losses in the country last winter in a report that showed circulation drops at many of the nation's largest papers. The U.S. circulation drop, reported yesterday and described as "Bloody Monday" by a newspaper industry Web site, was spurred by several factors, from increased competition for readers to changes in the way newspapers calculate their sales. Just as scattered reports of fabricated stories have shaken the editorial side of news organizations during the past year, concerns about circulation credibility have gripped the business side of the industry.

Centuries of industrial progress have scarcely altered the face of the newspaper. Its pages are ponderously large, ink still rubs off on your fingers and, aside from modern layouts and color pictures, it remains a make-over of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack.But the practice of printing words on flimsy paper is finally on the threshold of change. In homes across the nation, those words are appearing on computer screens.Electronic home-delivery is happening in San Jose, Chicago, Fort Worth and Spokane.

Circulation at the nation's major metropolitan newspapers continued to drop in the six months ending March 31 as consumers increasingly turned to the Internet and other electronic media for news, according to industry figures released yesterday. Average daily circulation at 745 newspapers dropped 2.1 percent compared with the corresponding period last year, according to a report released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations and analyzed by the Newspaper Association of America. Average Sunday circulation at 601 newspapers slipped 3.1 percent.

Circulation figures at most major urban newspapers, including The Sun, continued falling over the past year, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations figures released yesterday that showed a print media industry beset by competition from the Internet and new forms of technology. Daily circulation dropped an average 2.8 percent at the 770 newspapers that reported numbers for the six-month period that ended on Sept. 30 compared with the corresponding period last year.

Interesting that The Sun posts all Baltimore County Public Schools salaries. I feel you have every right to dig into our monetary lives for all to view, yet as quid pro quo, why don't you feel the pain of posting all of your employees' salaries? I'm sure you'd gain serious media attention, especially due to the growing lack of support for newspapers. Thanks again for reminding me why I do not spend my hard-earned money to read your newspaper. Talk about a teachable moment, yes?

Newspapers throughout the country sacrificed delicacy for historical completeness yesterday, deciding it was better to print the exact text of independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's report on President Clinton's extracurricular sex life -- graphic details and all -- than to protect readers' sensibilities."

The great department stores once stood in every city like eternal sentinels of American commerce. In Baltimore, they anchored the corners of Howard and Lexington streets -- Stewart's, the Hecht Co., Hochschild-Kohn, Hutzler's. And now they are gone. Some wonder if the same fate awaits the American newspaper. What was once unthinkable is now thought about as newspaper companies struggle with declining circulation and profits. Few newspapers have disappeared, but the respected Knight Ridder chain is no more, a victim of pressure from shareholders as circulation and profit margins declined.