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1 e Closing qtawspép‘gl e 20 By Ann Podd Sreciat to me counen-exeness . _ dinner-in the Hourglass Restauran The end -of the Buffalo Courier Expres§ was decided on Friday, Aug. 6, in Minneapolis, when the tap \Cowles flew-to Buffalo that Friday in August and told Parkinson over that \'we wére going to have to begin 'plans to close down and logk for a buyer. Obviously he was going t Once you decide the ~ rica: team , first visited Buffalo, involved. A team of Sitha, Parkin- son and Cowles Media executives from Minneapolis provided informa- tion and suggested possible ways to cut costs and staff. Meetings with Parkinson and Cowles Media staff in Minneapolis were held in the offices of-the company lawyers so other corporate staffers would not become suspicious about Parkinson's in- creasingly frequent trips to co rate headquarters. . ~ On Friday, Aug. 20, a News Ame- as part of the cover. with News America. according to Page. The delegation {lew in by private plane in the morning and included Murdoch, Kummerfeld, Page, News America Executive Vice President E. George Viles and Vice President Martin Fischbein. ° ''We were told we couldn't go into the building,\ Page recalled, so they drove around Buffalo. - That evening Parkinson unless sold. owles said he a scheduled 'to entertain the Murdoch team at dinner, But he was worried that they might be recognized in a restaurant, so he held the dinner at ' his home on Lincoln Parkway. To do so, two days before he-had finally told his wife, Maureen, of the pros- pective closing or purchase of the paper. That means that now two people in Buffalo knew. Sensitive to the secrecy, Maureen Parkinson, now a lawyer with Hodg- son, Ross, Buffalo's 'second largest law firm, served a filet mignon dinner herself instead of hiring a maid for the night, and remained in the kitchen to eat her own dinner. The only other large delegation of News America people to come to Buffalo arrived on Sunday, Aug. 29. As Parkinson recalls it, a group wanted to take a close look at the printing and circulation operations. But again, Parkinson was fearful of rumors if he was seen showing six men in suits around the building. So Express. R Still concerned over COURIER'S FATE Continued on Page A-T i he suggested the News America people dress casually so it looked L like they were his friends and he was showing them around, To rein- force this impression, Maureen Par- kinson and their J-year-old daughter Deborah were also taken on the tour That weekend Parkinson told a few more top employees, including Executive Editor Joel R. Kramer, so they could discuss their areas The more time that was spent, the better and-better it looked that the newspaper would be sold, Parkinson said. Two sets of press releases were «prepared. One said the Courier was being sold to News America and the- other said the paper would close Wednesday, Sept. 1, a meeting of the Cowles Media's company execu- tive committee was scheduled, but ow ked for a hoa meeting at the company's Min- neapolis headquarters. He said he told the members that a very impor- tant matter would be discussed and noted that later no one seemed t surprised to be talking about th salegpf the financially ailing Courier: security leaks, the board declined to have its usual waitress serve luncheon in the board's meeting room. Instead, box lunches were brought in to ensure that no outsider would hear the conversation. Cowles declined to talk about the issues discussed at the board meeting, which lasted from about noon to 3 p.m. But at the end of the meeting, he recommend> ed that the board approve two resolutions. One authorized the sale of the 148-year-old newspaper; the other authorized the closing. ''They NOW AND THEN: Assistant metro editor Jim Cleary - known to all as simply \JRC\ - perches next to a computer terminal in the Courler-Express news- room. Inset, a 1947 snapshot when two young reporters named Bill Callahan, left, and Jim Cleary shared a drink. Poo In those days, Courier reporters didn't have telephones on their desks as they have today. In our newsroom, we had a bank of six phones along a wall. There was no telephone operator to accept incom- ing calls. Consequently, there were many occasions when ringing phones went unanswered either be- cause a copy boy or girl (now called a copy aide) was not available or because a reporter was too busy writing a story and didn't want to get up and walk over to answer a phone call probably for somebody else. covered by a glass bulb, punched out words on an Inch-wi AFTER 38 Continued on Page A-5 Television sets were installed in the Courler newsroom a few years , ago because, it is said, an editor wanted to impress on the staff the immediacy of news. In the old days, the battery-operated radio had not reached popularity, and so we fol» lowed the World Series via ticker tape. This was a telegraph machine; that strip of paper. We followed th World Series game by reading the And in closing . .. SUBSCRIBERS: Today's newspaper wil be the last Courner- - management team of its p: to have to begin thinking about all parent » ? ~ ¥, company | determined . that | \the | Saues uf the need for secreey unti a game is no 33:51:95 no longer worth the | fina} decision was made, Parkinson longer worth -- 82 f a halo couldn't tell anyone - not even his Two days earlier, executives of wite A the C bl Cowles Media Co: had met with During the next week, Cowles said gamble ... who Courier-Express management in he and his serflor staff went over the nothin is no Buffalo to go over the financial numbers and treads again. But the 5 g \ ® out,\ results for the last three months. same answer came uialA Cowles gained by not Fgflkthe second quarter in a TOW - | media team-was put in charge of e \ previous years - the Buff@lo _ arranging the closedown in Septem- moving ugsFaper was loslng MOre MONEY |- per, K - l \ - than it had anticipated. . . It was Otto Silha's job to try to promptly. - . Back in Minneapolis, Cowles find a buyer. Three years earlier, it in Media President John Cowles JT. | \pad peen Stiha, chairman of Cowles John Cowles Irs of met with his senior staff to go over | Media, who had recommended the so- 3283311501“; affi‘zr‘zggemmgs purchase of the Courier to Cowles & : ’ ’ 0 a - I . Ei Circulation trerids were studied - 1 - e ri ‘ 4 - it Aune (2:11;me ffmge‘t‘m’; 121 - owners of CableScope, an operation | talent and - perhaps the best way -_ On Aug. 12 in New York. City, - these factors sbec £15330! gm 3,3;- that has turned out to be among the to say it - the stomach\ for a - Sitha laid out the scenario: Cowles trust snit between the Courier and most profitable of its holdings na- - Courier deal. Media plans to close the Courier lifes: A ; tionwide. ''We were immediately interest- - unless a buyer is found by Sept. 19. the Buffalo News, he said.) It wasn't Silha put in his first call to Donald | eg,\ said Robert E. P a res- long before the parent company's | 15 Kummerfeld, president and chief - o.; 33 1 F) N\ CA nerica \fie News America told Sitha it was management \took a pretty StTONE - operating officer of News America. - wouid pave bean the precidcot una _ YCrY, MMWereSted and would begin so view that we ought to be out and out | on Aug, 10 or 11. To Sha, News \OTO the president 4nd | checking whether \the risks in- fast,\\ Cowles said in an interview | America was \clearly and over. ,0' [MZ BWfAI® Courier | volved were worth taking on. If for yesterday. \Once you decide the whelmingly the only logical buyer Doles f Oe feal 38d, 200° - Cowles had any other prospects, game is no longer worth the gamble __ «\people are not lining up to buy thr ouglé. dNewls Ametricgas 30111251- they certainly weren't identified to and are losing money at the rate We | jog; j - Hon and development strategy is t0 - us,\ page said. ¥ 6 osing newspapers in competitive focus on major markets, he said. are, then nothlngnns gained by NOL markets,\ Sitha said. But News The company wasn't interested in Once he got that interest from moving promptly.\ ,_ \- America and. its owner, Rupert | small p03 munities or communi- - News America, Sitha said he didn't Once the preliminary decision Murdoch, had the reputation Of | ties with a mone make any other calls for prospective was made to close unless a buyer Y ties with a monopoly newspaper, he . heed 00, being willing to take on a No. 2 | saiq. \Our adrenaline flows on the - PUY°TS | Instead, | the : energies ife i was found, a new set of questions enewspaper in a city and make it No. big 0 \p. id . switched to providing the News 15,11: and gecisigqs followed. Some are | 1 giths pointed out that that's what $1321? i hisagizzpény was - ap. - America people with ffformation. of 3951-103; 3&3}; others, up until now, happened after News America proached by Silha, Page said News _ Because the Courier was News The first thing Cowles had to do | Toy\ gad we wew vom pos'ha) Amelica \had no interest\ in the | America's\'first major prospective ove! was tell Roger P. Parkinson, the \CX; 2nd the New York Post bad Courier, although he said it was. acquisition in some time,\ an ac- foil 8 h made major circulation gains since | aware of the paper's financial dif- - quisition team had to be set up. president. and | publisher CoWles - yuirdoch bought it in 1976. ficulti d those of it a News America's editorial mar- Media had installed after it bought Sitha said the Murdoch organiza- is“ $1510?“ the 03331153315 Al keting, financial, labor, production '8 a - the Courier-Express in August 1979. ; d the \ ience, resources. . | mp M h & ' e hsm: ° tion ha experience, UrCeS, - News. | . and circulation managers became f o I've ears at Courier o . Come to Painful End ome to TalIn n theaters on both sides of Main Street days}. there was one day city editor By James R. Cleary - separated by streetcar tracks - - who also functioned as rewrite man, Expres assistant metro econ . were thriving. The Courier carried - and he had no assistant editors. The - ads for the Great Lakes, the Hippo- - night city editor was simultaneously The date of Aug. 22, 1946, wil} drome and Shea's Buffalo, all within - the chief copy editor. Today the hever'be known as a day of infamy (wo blocks gn the west side of Main. former position of city editor is as and nobody remembers that it'was a Across the street were the 20th called metro editor, and there are Thursday. Century Theater and the Mercury several assistant metroeditors. > The date means something to me, Theater. Down a few blocks on the ' Back in 1946, no reporters were in however, because it was my first Southeast corner of Washington and assigned exclusively to- specialize in day as a reporter for the Courier- Lafayette Square was‘the Lafayette - education, criminal justice or envi- Express. At the. time I wasa fresh Theater. _ ronment, as they are today. We man at Canisius College and had G have a department of feature edi- had just completed five years' service in On th he Buffal tors and reporters. We have no ers the Army in World War IL. The b bane sap?” pages, tie u “3 Society Department, as it was years would pass and I would be a rise in th “12:5 weze Tire“ known in the old days, when it {If reporter for seven years and a P!ce in the lama! onal MeAEYUE: - consisted of an all-woman staff of rewrite man for five years, and then danwlng “3“,th h 106000 l? S‘g‘r‘zay one editor and four or five reporters 1h: te assigned to the metro desk for 24 f“ “9:20:25 dfixum 9581531?“ ail; pagaflng stories on engagements, years. weddings-and-social-events:- Today the I don't remember what my first East Ferry. | The | International = mo Courier charges for el ment assignment was, but the story didn't League lineup of teams looked big - ang wedging munmmemge hat make Page One, although in those It included the lToronlo For some inexplicable reason, the a days it was common for the manag. Maple Leafs, the Montreal Royals | sip,, reporters in the old days s ing editor to squeeze about 20 stories 209 Baltimore, then and now the were paid two-thirds the salary of * e on the front page. Of course, some of Orioles. the city-side reporters, some of \me‘Mff and them were only 2 or 3 inches in _ Television came to Buffalo on _ whom also were women. The Women fig-$1 B length. - Apparently | the | editor's May 13, 1948, when Ch. 4 went on the _ did not gain parity until The Buffalo h thinking was that he was sure to air as WBEN-TV. Before it arrived, Newspaper Guild became the bar- - asked: \Well then, what can we € catch the interest of every reader in radio was going strong, and stations - Zaining unit for the Editorial De- have?\ few at least one of 20 stories. advertised daily in the Courier. - partment employees in 1953, The The IEF did come away with The daily Courier sold then for 3 WEBR advertised its Hi-Teen Club - Guild had replaced, by employee - improved benefits offered by man- cents, the Sunday Courier cost 15 broadcast from Kleinhans Music - election, the Independent Editorial agement. The \No no, nos\ we cents, and a beginning reporter was Hall. WGR, then an affiliate of the - Federation (IEF), a non-affilated | received at the bargaining table are to paid $36 a week. Columbia Broadcasting System, in- - unfon of Courter staffers, which had - not to suggest that the Conners Judging from the advertisements vited readers to tune in Grand _ little clout. family was not generous to its ks, in the Courier in August 1946, down- Central Station, a popular drama at I remember one year when I was editorial employees. On the con- town was a boom town compared to the time, the Tony Martin Show and -- a member of the TEF team negotiat- - trary, our salaries were always on today's revitalization efforts. There Your Hit Parade. WKBW, an Ameri- - ing a contract with the Courter. We par with those of the News em- were ads for the W.T. Grant Co., can Broadcasting Compariy affili - drafted some 10 or 12 demands and ployees, represented at the time by J.N. Adam's and Edwards depart- ate, advertised Break the Bank. The - presented them to representatives of - the Guild. And at Christmas, Couri- ¥ ment stores and others now gone WBEN ad announced it would - William J. Conners Jr., then the - er Editorial Department employees of from the scene. broadcast a lecture by James O. - publisher, Management said \no\ to - received a non-contracted bonus in Television had not yet come to Moore titled \Peace in Palestine.\ each demand, after which the chair- - savings bonds that was equal to 344 Buffalo, and the downtown movie _ In the Courier newsroom in those _ man of our negotiating committee | weeks pay. ¥ M Ty | News' Morning Editi Premi CWS! ornIng it10n to Premiere na mere e> boxes, Lipsey said. News staff mem- - is the first premise of our opera- ranged to carry all Field features By Celia Viggo bers yesterday were working on | tion,\ Lipsey said. that ran in the Courier-Express coumen express stare Rertaren Tomorrow morning, the Buffalo News debuts as Buffalo's only morn- ing street-sale newspaper. The Buffalo Evening News, which uatil today had been published in the afternoon with morning editions only on weekends and holidays, will begin a regular, morning edition orrow. filling the gap created when the Courier-Express ceased publication today . News Vice Chairman Stanford Lipsey said yesterday that the morning edition, to be called The Bokalo News, \will atterapt to bring to the people of Western New York the key features they are used to reading in the Courier-Express.\ Those features, Lipsey said, in © clude some of the comics and syr- dicated columns the Courier carries. The News has not decided whether to pick up any Tocal Courier colum nists, Lipsey said. Lot ul Lipsey said the morning edition will be available about 6:20 a.m. at newsstands and in street boxes. He said he did not know whether the morning edition eventually will be ottered for home delivery. Liptey said did rot wart to comment on bow many issues of the morning ~ paper The News planned to print The morning edition «fll be sold just on the newsstands and in street + 4 \several different prototypes for the front page. under the guidance of Editor Murray Light.\ With the morning edition, The News will publish a total of seven editions daily, Lipsey said. Start-up costs for the morning paper, Lipsey said. basically apply to newsprint and staff. ''We expect to be using more newsprint, and obviously will be hiring some people,\ Lipsey said. Exactly how many is not definitely set.\\ He said all the new employees will be hired from the Courier Express. Lipsey said The News has only considered publishing a morning paper since Sept. 7, when Cowles Media Co., the parent of the Express, announced the paper would mwbfimdngéndaym -- u Discussions on a morning edi- rea Bcffett. On Sept. 11, Lipsey and Light flew to Washifgton, D.C., to meet with Buffett, who's based in Omatia but happened to be in Wash- ington last weekend. Beyond that discussion, however, Lipsey said the planzing has been is fhe hands of the Bcffalo Evening News manage ment, not the News* the Los Angeles -hased Blue Chip Stamps \We ron the the paper here this Lipsey said he would rather not discuss what decisions The News has made concerning advertising rates for its morning and afternoon editions. ''We're on record that we abso- lutely do not intend to increase the price of the paper,\ Lipsey said, adding that in the springtime, there would be \'the normal review\ of pricing policies. ._ On weekdays. The News sells for 25 cents at newsstands: on Sundays, it costs 50 cents Light said The News bad made \preliminary arrangements\ with newspaper syndicates to pick up some | Courler-Express | features, \stressing with every bae that if the Courier-Express were sold, we would not make any attempt to take a single Courier feature.\ Courier features that The News cauld pick up include humor co- fomns by Erma Bombeck and Andy Rockey, the Heloise bo@sebold hints obfimcn and the news stories and featires offered by The New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor Courier comics include Andy Capp. Hi and Lois, the offbeat Bloom County, and the classics Nancy and Hemy - An official of Field Syndicate last right said that The News had ar should the Courier stop publication today. * Field carries Bombeck, television columnist Gary Deeb, political co- lumnist Carl Rowan, and the Andy Capp, Dennis the Menace and Rex Morgan comic strips. Closing Notes The Friday before Labor Day. Metro Editor Mark Francis's sister- in-law was married. She and her ° husband went on a honeymoon to the Bahamas. When they returned to Buffalo last Sunday, they learned that the Courier-Express was about to fold. Monday morning, the new couple opened their wedding money, then offered all of it to Francis and his wife, Diane. It would tide them over until Mark gets another job, they said. Mark and Diane turned Express you will receive Your carer will collect for papers received up to and including Sept 19, 1982. All carriers are responsible for their bills These young merchants will appreciate prompt payment. PREPAID SUBSCRIPTIONS: Those customets who have paid in advance will, within the next several weeks, receive by mail a refund for the unused portion of ther subscripton CARRIERS: You wil recen@ an up-to-date biling for all papers - received through Sept 19, 1982 Please begin immediately to collect from all of your customers Your bil should be paid to your District - Manager by Sept 22, 1982 -~ ADVERTISERS: Within the next several days you wil receive an updated advertising invoice for all advertising run in the Couner-Express through Sept 19, 1982 Any advertising account needing special assistance for the return of original advertising material, call 855-6460 CLASSIFIED: Anyone running classhed ads wil be bited at fhe appeabie rate through Sept 19, 1982 Multiple insertion rates wil be honored POST OFFICE BOX ADVERTISERS: Af advertisefs who drected responses to advertisements to a post office box wil receive their responses up to the end of the month (Sept 30. 1982) j VENDORS: Al defivenes on order should enmediately be canceled AJ open, undelivered back orders should be canceled Consult with Gal Baumgarten Purchasing Manager If you wart more comes of today's editon. you can buy them in wedding. But Francis stifl smiled when he taid the stary the iobby of the Courier-Express at 787 Man Steet
