Buying a Voice Postgraduate Humor

THE MEDIA India to hunt tigers. As for Nmman Buying a Voice mix places the Voice somewhere be Chandler, he refused to talk to newsmen tween the straight Establishment press at all. And the same was true of the 79- First, he was just plain Carter Burden and the remote underground, and has year-old Guggenheim who, vacationing Harvard '63, Columbia Law '66, great built up a circulation of about 140,000, in Florida, declined even to talk to his nephew of Douglas Fairbanks Sr., great most of it in New York. own dismayed Newsday staffers about great-grandson of Commodore Cornelius What Taurus would like to do is to the deal. But the negotiations themselves Vanderbilt, husband of elegant socialite promote and sell the Voice nationally, raised some interesting-if still unanswer Amanda Mortimer and, not least, million particularly in such cities as San Fran able-questions: aire. Then, late last year, Burden ran an cisco, Los Angeles and Boston. Such dis • Would the Chandlers make Newsday a arduous, determined and well-financed tribution would enable the paper to serious contender in the New York City election campaign in a New York district reach a large part of the nation's youth market? "A New York Times reporter that includes unfashionable Spanish Har vote and, conceivably, might prove to be asked me the same thing," a Times Mirror lem as well as the chic East Side and an imaginative way to launch Burden on spokesman answered evasively, "and won a seat on the City Council. And a national political career as well. "Abso when I asked him why the Times want now the 28-year-old Burden, barely lutely not," insists Bull. "The Village ed to know, he replied: 'How did the fledged as a politician, has undertaken Voice will cover Burden as candidly as it governor of Florida feel when Fidel Cas always has." That may be so. But in tro set up shop 90 miles away'?" 1969 the Voice endorsed Emden in his • Would the Times Mirror dictate policy City Council race and, candidly, that to Newsday? Both Guggenheim and didn't hmt. orman Chandler are somewhat con servative (each endorsed Nixon in 1968). Postgraduate Humor But Guggenheim has left news coverage to his editors and to publisher Bill D. Amerioan humor magazines are few Moyers, Lyndon Johnson's fmmer press and far between-as far as from Mad to secretary, who, with Guggenheim's con Monocle. On the newsstands this week is sent, personally endorsed Hubert Hum a brash newcomer that may well bite in phrey in 1968. to both Mad's nearly 2 million readers • What would become of Moyers? and Monocle's more limited highbrow "That's a premature question," replies satire market. The new entrant: The Ta the 35-year-old publisher. "But my con tional Lampoon, a newsmagazine-sized siderations would be who owns the monthly produced by fmmer Harvard newspaper and what kind of newspaper Lampoon staffers. they want to put out. I think that I The first issue of the Lampoon, which would be happy only if publishing a had a J?ress run of 500,000 and sells for newspaper that is honestly independent." 75 cel)ts, cuts its teeth on the vaunted The biggest question, however, was sex revolution of the '60s. It includes a whether Newsday's four minority stock True Romance-style comic sh·ip starring holders, who met in W ashington late last David and Julie Eisenhowel that hints at week, would agree to the sale. Guggen something missing in their marriage ("All heim owns only 51 per cent of Newsday's the other fellas' wives do it," complains stock, and the Chandlers are not inter David), a "Playbore" foldout cutie (Pe es ted in buying the paper unless they nelope Plastique, an A&P checkout girl can get almost all the stock. When Alicia who loves both scuba diving and the Patterson died in 1963, her 49 per cent Donald Ktmelman women's liberation movement) and "Nor was divided among her four nieces and Burden: At 28, a new career mal Rockwall's Erotic Drawings" (con nephews, including Alice Albright Hoge, sisting of one drawing) . whose husband is editor of the presti an entirely new career as a newspaper 'Spiggy': Somewhat in1itative of one gious Chicago Sun-Times, and Alice's 33- ..entrepreneur. shot Lampoon parodies of Time, Life and year-old brother, Joseph Albright, who At the start of the year, Burden and Playboy, the new magazine enlarges the is now chief of Newsday's bureau in Bartle Bull, a 31-year-old Manhattan comic format of its ·campus namesake. Washington. attorney who was his campaign manager, Among its regular features are a hanky The Albrights, who are known to have formed a company called Tamus Com twitting "Uncle Tom's Column," offering much more liberal ideas than Guggen munications Inc., of which Burden owns whites a glossary of useful black collo heim about how to run a newspaper, 70 per cent and Bull 30 per cent. Shortly quialisms (sample: ,"out o,~ sight-of a~ seemed reluctant to go through with any afterward, it was revealed last week, excell ent character ) , a Horrorscope sale. And they had the backing of much Tamus bought a conh·olling interest in that predicts a White Hou e luncheon of Newsday's editorial staff. Almost as The Village Voice, New York's hip week honoring legro leader Roy Wilkins with soon as the proposed sale became known, ly tabloid whkh was started by Nmman a bronze watermelon, and "Mrs. Agnew's a telegram to Guggenheim and the other Mailer, editor Daniel Wolf and publisher Diary." In the diary's first installment, important stockholders urging them not Ed Fancher on a $15,000 bank loan fif Judy confides that "Dick thought maybe to sell the newspaper was tacked up by teen years ago. The Voice is now esti Hank Kissinger was getting a bit too-too staffers on the bulletin board at News mated to be worth close to $7 million and lately," but that "Spiggy" (Spiro) felt day's Carden City plant. Within 24 hours its pages-often as many as 80-are that "Hank wasn't half as too-too as Dan the telegram-petition had collected 150 crammed with advertising. This week Moynihan." signatures and was promptly sent off. "If Bull is leaving his Wall Street law firm The Lampoon's three top editors. Captain Guggenheim wants to sell his to become the paper's full-time vice Douglas Kenny, Henry Beard and Rob stock, why didn't he h·y to sell it to the president and general counseL ert Hoffman-all recent Harvard gradu em ployees first?" asked Brad O'Hearn, Burden and Bull say--they uo not plan ates and all under 25-know very well a general assignment reporter on the pa to make any changes in the paper's edi they are after a new audience. "It's not per. "There's a lot of uncertainty about torial formula, which includes such fea just bright young kids an· ,nore," admits what Otis Chandler is like and what tures as Jules Feiffer's acerbic cartoons Kenny. "It's aging college kids." Putting Newsday will be like. We simply don't and Jack Newfield's chronicles of the out a monthly that will entertain the want to take a chance on Newsday's New Left, as well as extensive coverage nearly-30s may make the three youth independence." of New York cultural life. The cmrent ful editors old fast. 94 Nt>w;owt'ek, March 23, 1970 -- ------~ ----~ .

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