New York Herald Tribune - New York Herald Tribune

New York Herald Tribune

The newly merged paper was not profitable, and the Reid family had to subsidize the paper in its first few years of existence. But the Herald Tribune quickly began establishing a reputation as a "newspaperman's newspaper", with literary writing encouraged by city editor Stanley Walker. After losing $650,000 in 1932, the Herald Tribune turned a marginal profit the following year, and would remain relatively healthy for the next two decades. Unlike other pro-Republican papers, such as Hearst's New York Journal-American or the Chicago Tribune, which held an isolationist and pro-German stance, the Herald-Tribune was more supportive of the British and the French.

After the death of publisher Ogden Mills Reid in 1947, the Herald Tribune, despite some star writers and columnists, went into a decline under his widow, Helen Rogers Reid, and sons, Whitelaw Reid II and Ogden R. Reid (later a congressman). Many of the staff felt there was too much focus on circulation at the expense of the paper's editorial standards, for example the new push for puzzle contests such as Tangle Town, which was given credit for a rise in weekday circulation of 60,000 to bring the total to over 400,000. Its Paris edition became the home-town newspaper of Americans in postwar Europe, while nurturing the careers of expatriate journalists like the humorist Art Buchwald.

In 1958, the Reids sold control to John Hay Whitney. Under Whitney, the paper regained some of its lustre, deciding that since it could not compete with The New York Times in sheer volume of news, it would be faster, feistier and funnier. In this period, the Herald Tribune was radically re-designed under editor-in-chief John Denson and executive editor Freeman Fulbright, and new writers like Tom Wolfe were encouraged to contribute. But the key to success was still advertising dollars, and on that count The Times was the leader. A series of strikes throughout the 1960s did not help the paper's balance sheet.

In 1966, Whitney attempted to organize what would have been New York's first joint operating agreement (JOA) with the Hearst-owned New York Journal American and the Scripps-owned New York World-Telegram and Sun; under the proposed agreement, the Herald Tribune would have continued publication as the morning partner, and a merged Journal-American and World-Telegram would have been the afternoon paper. The JOA was to take effect on May 1, 1966, but the unions immediately threw up a strike, and as the months dragged on, a compromise three-way merger was arrived at on August 15.

The result was the short-lived afternoon New York World Journal Tribune. The first weeks' editions were dominated by the input of the Hearst and Scripps papers, but after a time, the "Widget" (as the merged publication was nicknamed) took on the appearance and style of the late-era Herald Tribune. However, the paper was not a success and folded for good on May 5, 1967.

Following the collapse of the World Journal Tribune, The New York Times and the Washington Post became joint owners with Whitney of the Herald Tribune's European edition, the International Herald Tribune, which is still published under full ownership by the Times, which bought out the Post holdings in 2003. New York magazine is also a descendant of the Herald Tribune, having originally been the Herald Tribune's Sunday magazine, a livelier version of The New York Times Magazine. Following the death of the World Journal Tribune, New York editor Clay Felker organized a group of investors who bought the name and rights, and successfully revived the weekly in 1968.

In Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960), the student and aspiring journalist Patricia (Jean Seberg) sells the New York Herald Tribune along the Champs-Élysées. It is also the major focus of the 1952 thriller Assignment Paris, with Dana Andrews as an aggressive New York reporter sent to the Paris newsroom and then Budapest. In the popular "Danny Thomas Show" on CBS from 1957 to 1964, the main character, Danny Williams, a New York nightclub comedian, can be clearly seen in several episodes reading the New York Herald Tribune.