"We can't afford to penalize our good papers any more," said a Hearst executive last week. "With modern newspaper economics, you just can't tap a good paper to carry a dog." With this unsentimental epitaph, the 14-paper Hearst chain lopped off another link: the faltering Detroit Times, which Hearst sold to its afternoon rival, the independent Detroit News, for $10 million.
Caught in a squeeze between the News (circ. 480,673) and the morning Detroit Free Press (500,220), the Times has long been courting disaster, and its demise has been freely predicted (TIME, May 9). Between 1950 and the moment of its death,...
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