War in Boston

"JUST LOOK AT WHAT'S HAPPENING IN BOSTON," said a full-page ad that ran in the Boston Post and six New York, Chicago and other metropolitan papers last week. What was happening, as an accompanying chart made clear, was that the Post had gained more than 100,000 advertising lines over a year ago, v. a minute gain for Hearst's Record-American, a drop of more than 175,000 lines for the Globe, and a drop of more than 300,000 for the Herald-Traveler. What was also happening in Boston was the hottest newspaper war in years.

It started nearly two years ago, when Jack-of-all-trades John Fox, 47 (oil and gas, Western Union, a radio station), bought the ailing Post. Fox missed no sensational tricks to get circulation, used shock tactics to get Bostonians to read his own Page One editorials and his financial column under the byline "Washington Waters." Harvardman Fox also lashed out at his alma mater as a hotbed of Reds, and later took credit for the Post because "treason has gone out of style at Harvard." He urged, in effect, that the U.S. end the cold war by starting World War III. "The Great Attack, the last one we consider to be inevitable within five years ... We also think that THERE IS AT LEAST A 50-50 CHANCE THAT IT WILL BE MADE BY US ... Whoever strikes first has the world."

A fortnight ago, the competing Boston Herald took note of such doom, saying: "Our friend John Doom has everything figured out . . . Morning after morning ... he assures us that things are getting worse, will get still worse and soon worse than that . . . Despite Mr. Doom, children are born every day, and parents are happy about it and plan. They talk about Harvard, class of '75." John Fox fired back. Noting that he had been the subject of recent editorials in both the Daily Worker and "our dearly beloved, friendly competitor, the Boston Herald," he offered to have the circulation of the Post and Herald audited at his expense.

But John Fox did not seem to be winning Boston's newspaper war. His paper has lost 10,500 circulation in a year (latest Post figure: 291,604), against a smaller loss for the Herald-Traveler (combined circ. 331,513) and a slight gain for the Globe (morning and evening circ. 277,318). And while it was true that John Fox had gained ad linage, he did so by slashing minimum rates from 51-c- to 44-c- a line, v. the Herald-Traveler's 44.88-c- and the Globe's flat 55-c-. The Herald-Traveler still had twice as much linage as the Post in the first quarter, and the Post was still steadily losing money. But that did not bother Publisher Fox. He could keep right on losing money, and pouring cash into the Post from his oil, gas and other properties, including a bank that he bought in January. Said Fox confidently: "One of the papers now in Boston will not be here on Christmas Eve, 1954."

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