When the evening Atlanta Journal published a 104-page, ad-filled Thursday paper last week, it was a hefty surprise to the 250,000 Journal subscribers. The reason: only a month before, the Journal had announced that it was cutting down on advertising because of the newsprint shortage.
The Journal's one-day solution was simple. Unable to buy sufficient newsprint at the contract price of $104 a ton, the Journal and the jointly-owned morning Constitution had cut their advertising 20% (TIME, Oct. 9). But they had also bought up 350 tons of newsprint on the open market at from $175 to $200. This they offered to...