Publisher Otis Chandler's Los Angeles Times has long been the West's proud and prosperous voice of conservatism. President Philip Graham's Washington (D.C.) Post and Times Herald is a lively advocate of the New Frontier. Last week the two papers announced that they are pooling their talents to form the first new U.S. news service since World War II. The partnership is both curiously distant and distinctly promising.
The Times-Post service will offer its clients (18 papers so far) 10,000 to 15,000 words a day, seven days a week, from well-staffed bureaus in Washington and...