David Pollack Verjaardag, Geboortedatum

Press Notes; MORE PAPERS ARE STUDYING MERGER GAINS

Date: 20 June 1982

By Jonathan Friendly

Jonathan Friendly

Before the decision last week by Attorney General William French Smith approving a merger of the business and production operations of Seattle's two daily newspapers, publishers in other cities were considering the benefits they might gain from similar mergers. Newspaper owners generally decline to speak out about potential joint operations, saying that such conversations can invite Justice Department scrutiny. Industry sources, including some publishers, say privately that such agreements are possible in Buffalo, where the losses of The Courier-Express reportedly exceeded the $1 million that The Evening News said it had lost; Trenton, where The Trenton Times has been a consistent money loser in its fight with The Trentonian, and New York City, where The Daily News and The New York Post both reported losing more than $10 million last year. The Seattle Times and Post-Intelligencer operation is the fourth approved since 1970, when Congress created a special antitrust exemption for threatened newspapers. Mergers were approved in Anchorage in 1974, in Cincinnati in 1979 and in Chattanooga in 1980.

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THE BUYING OF THE PRESIDENT

Date: 20 June 1982

By Larry Sabato

Larry Sabato

THE REAL CAMPAIGN How the Media Missed the Story of the 1980 Campaign. By Jeff Greenfield. 319 pp. New York: Summit Books. $15.95. A great political scientist, V.O. Key Jr., once suggested a fundamental principle of good election analysis: ''Voters are not fools.'' If Key's proposition tends to startle, it may be because we have heard for so long and so often how easily we are manipulated by the press, by the politicians and by the political consultants. Jeff Greenfield performs a valuable and necessary service in his new book, ''The Real Campaign,'' by reminding us of the powerful truth in Key's axiom. Relying on news accounts, columns and broadcasts, Greenfield convincingly argues that the print and electronic press and paid political advertising ''made almost no difference in the outcome of the 1980 Presidential campaign.'' What produced the result, not only of the November election but also of the convention selections, were issues, ideas and substance rather than style, hoopla, television commercials and staged events.

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Brief Falklands Tour Planned for Reporters

Date: 20 June 1982

AP

Officials here are planning to let non-British reporters into the Falkland Islands for a quick tour, the Defense Ministry said today. But a ministry spokesman said the projected 36-hour tour was being held up by Argentina's refusal to agree to a formal truce. The ministry provided no further details, but The Financial Times of London reported that the trip would involve a flight from London to Santiago, Chile, on British Caledonian Airways, another commercial flight to Punta Arenas at Chile's southern tip and a flight on a Royal Air Force jet to Stanley, the islands' capital.

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PRESS IN LEBANON: FREEWHEELING MIX

Date: 19 June 1982

By William E. Farrell, Special To the New York Times

William Farrell

Despite the anarchy here, or perhaps because of it, the press, radio and television stations are more free-wheeling than in any other Arab country. Some of the Lebanese news outlets, primarily radio stations and some of the newspapers, have ideological bents and they mix propaganda with reporting. The broadcasts are in Arabic, French and English. There are newspapers in French as well as Arabic. The most respected newspaper is An Nahar, an independent Arabic daily.

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New Program for Journalists

Date: 20 June 1982

AP

Stanford University has announced the establishment of the John S. Knight Professional Journalism Program to finance a year of advanced study for 12 midcareer journalists. The program, based on a $4 million grant by the Knight Foundation, is in honor of the late founder of Knight Newspapers.

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PRESIDENTS: HIRED, MIRED, FIRED

Date: 20 June 1982

By Henry F. Graff

Henry Graff

So, President Reagan is already being shown the door. The sharp decline in his popularity that we see in the public opinion polls suggests that the people are ready to wash their hands of him in the usual length of time they give a President to satisfy them these days. Ronald Reagan, the media report to us, is out of touch with details, mindlessly zealous in defending a failed economic strategy, embarrassingly willing to retreat from his foreign policy, a rich man deaf to the anguish of his fellow citizens. Whoever follows the news can choose among epithets: Mr. Reagan is naive, or simple, or foolish, or lazy, or senile - or some combination of these labels. At the very least, the story that emerges is of a President caught between his ideology and his lack of competence.

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JUDGE RELEASES THE NAMES OF HINCKLEY JURORS

Date: 20 June 1982

By Jane Perlez, Special To the New York Times

Jane Perlez

Federal District Judge Barrington D. Parker today released the names and addresses of the jurors in the trial of John W. Hinckley Jr., saying he found ''compelling'' arguments that jurors should be interviewed by reporters as soon as possible after the verdict. In releasing the names of the jurors after attorneys for The New York Times made a motion this morning for access to the information, Judge Parker said the First Amendment conferred on the press a right to ''attend and report on criminal proceedings,'' and added that the First Amendment mandated that such a right could not be abridged absent a showing of an ''overriding interest.'' The judge said that no ''overriding interest'' was present in the Hinckley case and, noting that the jury was sequestered Friday, added, ''It does not appear that release of the jurors' names and addresses could influence their deliberations in any way.''

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Pro Bono Publico

Date: 19 June 1982

By Sydney H. Schanberg

Sydney Schanberg

I sympathize with readers who complain that newspapers always give you the full treatment when juicy stories first break but almost never tell you later how the plot ends. Our critics sneer that our mental faculties and attention span are stunted. In the interest of dispelling that widespread myth, I offer here updates on three suspense stories in Manhattan. Frederick Richmond, the 58-year-old, four-term Representative from Brooklyn, is maneuvering desperately to hang onto his seat in Congress despite mounting evidence that he has been living outside the law professionally and personally. He is under intense investigation by a Federal grand jury here for financial, ethical, criminal and drug irregularities.

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GRANVILLE HICKS, CRITIC AND LEADER IN PROLETARIAN MOVEMENT, IS DEAD

Date: 19 June 1982

By Walter H. Waggoner

Walter Waggoner

Granville Hicks, literary critic, novelist, columnist and a leading writer in the proletarian literature movement of the 1930's, died yesterday at the Franklin Convalescent Center in Franklin Park, N.J., after a long illness. He was 80 years old and had lived in Kendall Park, N.J., before entering the convalescent home. Mr. Hicks, a bespectacled mild-mannered man, was often the focus of political and literary controversy on an intellectual journey that took him from an early rapture with Marxism to far more moderate political ground later in life. In 1953, he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a ''cooperative'' witness.

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News Analysis

Date: 19 June 1982

By Martin Tolchin, Special To the New York Times

Martin Tolchin

In the wee hours this morning, bleary-eyed House-Senate conferees adopted a compromise budget resolution for the fiscal year 1983, and staff members will spend most of the weekend sorting out the numbers. The budget will be on the House and Senate floor for approval next week, and members of Congress are likely to focus on three major questions: Is it credible? Is it achievable? Will it make a difference? Although the members of the conference committee agreed on a budget with a deficit of $103.9 billion, few lawmakers baking under the television lights in the airless conference room believed that the deficit would be much under $125 billion. This was because the budget was based on some questionable economic assumptions that have been challenged, including interest and unemployment rates, questionable savings in the cost of government and the serious political problems implicit in putting the document into effect.

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