a Chicago newspaper publisher named Bruce Sagan kept turning over in his mind the implications of the 1956
Times
convention venture. Sagan was just 27 years old and already published a string of weeklies in the Chicago area. The
Times
, he reasoned, was producing a valued daily paper, strong in national and international coverage, and one that Sagan had read when he was growing up in Manhattan, and later used to buy as a college student at the University of Chicago bookstore (it was delivered by air mail, three days late).
Sagan understood that other, less successful papers in Chicago and around the country were in the process of consolidating or disappearing; the New York papers memorialized in the Times Tower copper box were testimony to that reality. Sagan reasoned that the
Times’
fax technology—plus his own printing presses—could together create asuccessful new product for these regional markets. On July 29, 1959, he mailed off his proposal to Arthur HaysSulzberger. “Your company has developed a process for sending over wire composed pages and receiving at the other end the information on an offset negative,” Sagan wrote. “We have recently installed a 16-page Vanguard offset newspaper press which we are using in the experimental printing of one of our weeklies.” Sagan then made his pitch: “It is perhaps time for someone to try a national daily newspaper.… Do we have anything to discuss?” On August 4, Sulzberger replied, in full: “As I understand your letter of July 29th, your question is whether or not we would be interested in using the facsimile method of reproduction to make the
New York Times
available in other communities. The only answer I can give you at the present time is no.”
The
Times
did start a limited national edition three years later, after Arthur Hays Sulzberger’s illness and the appointment of his son-in-law, Orvil Dryfoos, as publisher. It was not a well-thought-out venture. Instead of facsimile, the
Times
used the old linotype technology; type was set in New York and transmitted to presses in Los Angeles for printing and distribution. The project, called “Westward Ho” within the paper, soon faltered. Some Westerners may have wanted a pocket version of the New York paper, but the
Times’
choice of a centralized printing plant meant that the company was dependent on small aircraft—and the vagaries of weather—to get the paper delivered to areas beyond Los Angeles.
Punch Sulzberger killed “Westward Ho” within a year of succeeding Dryfoos. The
Times
didn’t revive the idea of a nationally distributed edition until the late 1970s, well after the
Wall Street Journal
had demonstrated how to reach a national market with the technologies of facsimile and space satellite. Following the
Journal
model, the
Times
used a satellite to link a network of printing plants (some owned by the
Times
, some under contract) through facsimile technology. In the Chicago area, the Southtown Economist, Inc., Bruce Sagan’s company, won the contract to become the
Times’
printer. On April 24, 1980, after the
Times
signed its facsimile-transmission agreement with Community Newspapers, Sagan sent Punch Sulzberger a bantering note, attaching photocopies of the letters Sagan had exchanged two decades before with Arthur Sulzberger. Punch Sulzberger replied as his father had, by return mail. He thanked Sagan for the “wonderful” correspondence, and made a little joke about the
Times’
deliberateways: “Dad put a committee together 21 years ago, and they just reported out.”
That was Dad, and that was Punch: the father uninterested in seizing opportunities to take the
Times
beyond its “one product” and indeed beyond its base in New York, the son willing to expand and diversify. While AHS spurned a column on New York by Gay Talese because it was too soft, the son started the daily magazine sections (and rode out the sneering remarks about the
Times’
pasta desk, and its hard-hitting
Times
convention venture. Sagan was just 27 years old and already published a string of weeklies in the Chicago area. The
Times
, he reasoned, was producing a valued daily paper, strong in national and international coverage, and one that Sagan had read when he was growing up in Manhattan, and later used to buy as a college student at the University of Chicago bookstore (it was delivered by air mail, three days late).
Sagan understood that other, less successful papers in Chicago and around the country were in the process of consolidating or disappearing; the New York papers memorialized in the Times Tower copper box were testimony to that reality. Sagan reasoned that the
Times’
fax technology—plus his own printing presses—could together create asuccessful new product for these regional markets. On July 29, 1959, he mailed off his proposal to Arthur HaysSulzberger. “Your company has developed a process for sending over wire composed pages and receiving at the other end the information on an offset negative,” Sagan wrote. “We have recently installed a 16-page Vanguard offset newspaper press which we are using in the experimental printing of one of our weeklies.” Sagan then made his pitch: “It is perhaps time for someone to try a national daily newspaper.… Do we have anything to discuss?” On August 4, Sulzberger replied, in full: “As I understand your letter of July 29th, your question is whether or not we would be interested in using the facsimile method of reproduction to make the
New York Times
available in other communities. The only answer I can give you at the present time is no.”
The
Times
did start a limited national edition three years later, after Arthur Hays Sulzberger’s illness and the appointment of his son-in-law, Orvil Dryfoos, as publisher. It was not a well-thought-out venture. Instead of facsimile, the
Times
used the old linotype technology; type was set in New York and transmitted to presses in Los Angeles for printing and distribution. The project, called “Westward Ho” within the paper, soon faltered. Some Westerners may have wanted a pocket version of the New York paper, but the
Times’
choice of a centralized printing plant meant that the company was dependent on small aircraft—and the vagaries of weather—to get the paper delivered to areas beyond Los Angeles.
Punch Sulzberger killed “Westward Ho” within a year of succeeding Dryfoos. The
Times
didn’t revive the idea of a nationally distributed edition until the late 1970s, well after the
Wall Street Journal
had demonstrated how to reach a national market with the technologies of facsimile and space satellite. Following the
Journal
model, the
Times
used a satellite to link a network of printing plants (some owned by the
Times
, some under contract) through facsimile technology. In the Chicago area, the Southtown Economist, Inc., Bruce Sagan’s company, won the contract to become the
Times’
printer. On April 24, 1980, after the
Times
signed its facsimile-transmission agreement with Community Newspapers, Sagan sent Punch Sulzberger a bantering note, attaching photocopies of the letters Sagan had exchanged two decades before with Arthur Sulzberger. Punch Sulzberger replied as his father had, by return mail. He thanked Sagan for the “wonderful” correspondence, and made a little joke about the
Times’
deliberateways: “Dad put a committee together 21 years ago, and they just reported out.”
That was Dad, and that was Punch: the father uninterested in seizing opportunities to take the
Times
beyond its “one product” and indeed beyond its base in New York, the son willing to expand and diversify. While AHS spurned a column on New York by Gay Talese because it was too soft, the son started the daily magazine sections (and rode out the sneering remarks about the
Times’
pasta desk, and its hard-hitting
Similar Books
