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Since assuming control from his father in 1960, Publisher Otis Chandler, 46, has expanded the paper's scope and built up its national reputation. Its network of foreign correspondents is sizable (19), and their files home carry more life than most. In his regular features from Moscow, Murray Seeger offers cross-cultural information in the style of Alistair Cooke. The paper's Washington bureau has had several Watergate scoops, including the first interview with Alfred C. Baldwin, who was manning a listening post when the burglars were caught. That exclusive earned Bureau Chief John Lawrence a 2½-hour jail term after he refused Judge John Sirica's order to turn the interview tapes over to the Watergate prosecutors. With Baldwin's permission, the material was later submitted.
THE LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL Morning (circ. 230,956) and Sunday (363,917).
The advertisement shows a fist slamming down on a table. The caption: "What this town needs is another newspaper!" Oddly enough, the ad appears in the Courier-Journal; it and its sister evening Times are the only newspapers in Louisville. This ad was placed and paid for by the Courier-Journal, which is uneasy about its news monopoly. A press monopoly is never desirable, but the Courier-Journal handles its responsibility well. Its history of enlightened service goes back to "Marse Henry" Watterson, the Courier-Journal's first editor in 1868, and later to Publishers Robert and George Barry Bingham, a father and son who played a major role in coaxing Kentuckians into accepting peaceful integration.
Grandson Barry Bingham Jr., 40, the current editor and publisher, has maintained the paper's public-spirited tradition. George Wallace, for instance, has called it the "Curious-Journal" because of its liberal approach to racial issues. On the eve of the second Nixon Inaugural, Bingham editorially urged citizens to march on Washington and demand an end to secret Indochina bombings. The Courier-Journal was the first U.S. daily to hire a full-time editorial ombudsman to monitor the paper's fairness and accuracy. It also retains an advertising ombudsman to weed out false or misleading claims.
The paper's state coverage often gets measurable results. Courier-Journal stories showing how some back-country lawyers reaped huge profits from miners in black-lung-disease cases are expected to bring legislative action this year. The paper even takes on thoroughbred racing, a sacrosanct Kentucky institution. A 1972 series exposed apparent conflicts of interest on the part of some racing officials, ownership of a horse by convicted felons and the operations of bookies. The racing hierarchy was outraged, but reforms were prompt.
THE MIAMI HERALD Morning (circ. 404,846) and Sunday (507,777).
A cargo plane loaded with Christmas trees crashed into a Cuban neighborhood in Miami one Saturday night last month, killing nine people. At the time, Herald Editor Larry Jinks was at a party and the paper had only three men on duty in its newsroom. Upon hearing the news, Jinks took a carload of reporters from the party to the crash site, had 30 men on the story by 3 a.m. Their work, plus five pictures, appeared in nearly one-third of the Sunday morning press run.