YEAR IN REVIEW 1996: MEDIA-AND-PUBLISHING: MAGAZINES

MAGAZINES: Ebony at 50 It was 1945 and World War II had ended when the premiere issue of Ebony magazine hit the newsstands in November. The brainchild of Johnson Publishing Co. founder John Johnson, Ebony (so christened by Johnson's wife) was the second publication to evolve from the company that had begun just three years earlier with $500 and a dream. As a 24-year-old newspaper editor in 1942, Johnson borrowed the money to produce Negro Digest, the flagship publication of his fledgling company. The magazine chronicled a sampling of events taking place within the black community that went largely unreported by the mass media. Three years later Ebony, a sister publication, was born. "Ebony," explained Johnson, "was founded to project all dimensions of the Black personality in a world saturated with stereotypes. . . . Blacks needed positive images to fulfill their potentialities." Never intended as a black version of such weeklies as Time or Newsweek, Ebony was a monthly with a photo-editorial format and was designed to infuse a much-needed sense of self-esteem into the black community by illustrating in words and pictures the varied accomplishments of the African-American populace, thereby replacing negative images with positive ones. In the 50 years from the magazine's inception, it annually claimed the number one position as the most widely circulated and popular magazine of its kind. Ebony's original press run was 25,000 copies (but another 25,000 copies had to be quickly printed in order to meet demand). By 1995 Ebony was available in more than 40 countries, reported a monthly circulation of two million copies, and gauged its overall monthly readership at 11 million people. Linda Johnson Rice, Johnson's daughter, served from 1987 as president and chief operating officer of the corporation, which had annual revenues in excess of $250 million in 1995 and reached, through its publications, more than half of all African-American adults across a broad spectrum. Rice once remarked, "I guess we have been successful and have been number one for so long that I believe fundamentally we must be doing something right." In addition to the magazine's focus on family, relationships, fitness, and finances, Ebony had over the years featured articles written by such well-known figures as first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and poet Gwendolyn Brooks. In keeping with this tradition, the magazine's 50th-anniversary issue contained articles written by Coretta Scott King, Maya Angelou, and four U.S. presidents, including Bill Clinton. (ANTHONY L. GREEN) NEWSPAPERS A series of price rises for newsprint wreaked havoc in the newspaper industry worldwide in 1995. Between March and the end of the year, newsprint prices rose about 50%. It brought to an abrupt end the decade-long trend toward larger papers and special-interest supplements and encouraged a switch to more economical tabloid formats. One of the worst-hit companies was Rupert Murdoch's News International and its five U.K. titles (The Times, Sunday Times, Sun, News of the World, and Today). The company was forced to cut pages and print runs in March and April. Its weakest newspaper, the Labour-leaning Today, founded in 1986, was most seriously hit; it suffered a marked fall in circulation, was at one point put up for sale, and in November was closed. The rising costs resulted in the abatement of a fierce two-year price war in Britain, which had been initiated by Murdoch, and cover prices started to edge up. In August The Times was given away free for one day, courtesy of Microsoft Corp., which sponsored the entire issue to mark the launch of its Windows 95. The money-losing Independent, founded shortly after Today in 1986, was briefly famous for its fresh and fearless approach to reporting. By 1995, however, it had become the sickest of the British papers, and it endured another round of refinancing in March, which resulted in Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent Newspapers group and Mirror Group Newspapers more than doubling their stakes, to 43% each. The paper was relaunched with a tabloid second section in June, but it was still below the target of 300,000 copies per day as the year ended. Its editor, Ian Hargreaves, was forced out by the two dominant owners in November. In such competitive markets there was an unusually large number of changes of editors during the year, as new leadership was established at The Guardian, Daily and Sunday Telegraph, Daily and Sunday Express, Daily Mirror, and News of the World. In September The Observer, which had suffered two decades of decline, was relaunched by new editor Andrew Jaspan and the new owner, the Guardian Media Group, but as the year ended it had yet to show a significant improvement in sales. The Thomson Corp. withdrew from the British industry by putting its Scottish newspapers up for sale, as well as its English regional newspaper chain. In November the Scotsman, flagship of the company, a morning daily famous for speaking up for Scottish interests from Edinburgh, was sold for an estimated 90 million to property tycoons David and Frederick Barclay. The brothers also salvaged the European, an English-language weekly founded by the late Robert Maxwell. In December Lloyd's List and Shipping Gazette, the daily paper serving the shipping industry, was sold to its staff via a management buyout by the troubled insurance market owners, Lloyd's of London. Ireland's debt-laden Irish Press Newspapers group, which published the Irish Press, Sunday Press, and Evening Press, was placed in liquidation. The papers stopped publication on May 26, but efforts to salvage the titles continued, unsuccessfully, until August. In Hong Kong the South China Morning Post suffered editorial cuts and gained a new editor, Jonathan Fenby (former editor of The Observer in London). It also dropped its "Lily Wong" cartoon strip in what some criticized as a self-censorship move in preparation for China's taking control in 1997. Murdoch struck a deal with the communist People's Daily to develop information services. In Singapore the International Herald Tribune was in the spotlight in the ongoing struggle over how far American news organizations were prepared to compromise with governments that rejected Western concepts of free speech. In July the paper was ordered to pay record damages of S$950,000 to Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and to Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore's founding father and senior minister) and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, the deputy prime minister. The damages arose from an article by Philip Bowring, a former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, which suggested that the son had been appointed deputy prime minister because of his father. In India the English-language press, led by the Times of India, became more popular in tone in an effort to fend off competition from rapidly growing Indian-language papers. The Bombay (Mumbai)-based Audit Bureau of Circulation said that with five main titles (Times of India, Indian Express, Hindu, Hindustan Times, and Economic Times), there was a saturation of English-language papers. In Australia there was a buildup of pressure on the government from three media magnates, Murdoch, Kerry Packer, and Conrad Black, all seeking a relaxation in rules limiting foreign interests in Australian companies. Control of the media group John Fairfax Holdings was one of the most coveted prizes. (MAGGIE BROWN) Newspapers in the U.S. also were affected by the skyrocketing cost of newsprint in 1995, with some forced to take drastic measures. The Washington Post limited the amount of foreign travel by reporters and cut back on space in some sections. Other papers, including the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, laid off staffers. The New York Times raised its newsstand prices both in and out of town. Sunday magazines at papers such as the Dallas (Texas) Morning News and the Providence (R.I.) Journal were folded. USA Today cut its news space by 5%, and California's Orange County Register reduced the width of its pages. Houston, Texas, became the nation's largest one-newspaper city with the abrupt closing of the Houston Post. The 111-year-old paper was sold to the Hearst Corp.'s Chronicle, which immediately shut it down. There was no final commemorative issue. The Evening Sun, an 85-year-old institution in Baltimore, Md., was closed by its Los Angeles-based owner, the Times Mirror Co. Most famous as H.L. Mencken's forum for 30 years, the paper was known for its coverage of local issues and its blue-collar readership. The 10-year-old New York Newsday also closed during the year. The nation's largest newspaper publisher, Gannett Co., became even larger with its acquisition of Multimedia Inc. Gannett, which already owned 82 newspapers, including USA Today, would add another 11 dailies and 49 nondaily papers, increasing its circulation to more than 6.4 million a day. The purchase also allowed Gannett to expand its holdings in television and radio as well as branch out to cable TV. The newly acquired papers were located in medium to small markets, and all were in states where Gannett owned no newspapers. A survey found that fully half the newspapers in the U.S. were initiating or exploring the possibility of starting on-line services. Eight of the largest newspaper companies banded together to create a national network of local newspapers on-line. The participating companies were Gannett Co. Inc., Knight-Ridder Inc., Advance Publications Inc., Times Mirror Co., Tribune Co., Cox Newspapers Inc., Hearst Corp., and Washington Post Co. They collectively owned 185 daily papers with a circulation of about 20 million. The goal of the partnership was to get greater numbers of papers on-line, establishing a coast-to-coast network. Two New Hampshire dailies got a jump on the 1996 presidential election by setting up a site on the World Wide Web. Foster's Democrat in Dover and the Citizen of Laconia would cover the New Hampshire primary, offering analysis and on-line discussion between citizens and candidates. The Wall Street Journal added a sports page and a travel page to its Friday edition. The New York Daily News launched El Daily News, a bilingual edition published Monday through Friday. The Evening Bulletin in Providence, started in 1863 to provide late-breaking news from the Civil War front, merged with the city's morning paper, the Providence Journal. The owner of the Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel combined the two papers in April as the Journal Sentinel. In Michigan the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press continued to publish despite a strike that began in July. The Virgin Islands Daily News won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for public service with a 10-part series on crime and the criminal justice system. The Gannett newspaper, based on St. Thomas, had only 18 full-time editors and reporters. The prize for spot news reporting went to the staff of the Los Angeles Times. Using manual typewriters, emergency phones, and flashlights, the staff managed to publish a paper capturing the drama and devastation of the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake. Two New York Newsday reporters won the prize for investigative reporting for stories about the abuse of disability pensions by police officers. Other Pulitzers went to Washington Post reporter Leon Dash and photographer Lucian Perkins, who won for explanatory journalism for their series on a welfare family in Washington, D.C. The prize for beat reporting went to David M. Shribman of the Boston Globe for his insights on the national political scene. Tony Horwitz of the Wall Street Journal took the award for national reporting for his stories on the oppressive conditions that workers in low-wage and low-skill fields were forced to endure. For his graphic and moving coverage of the ethnic violence in Rwanda, Mark Fritz of the Associated Press won the prize for international reporting. The feature writing award went to Ron Suskind of the Wall Street Journal for a series on inner-city honours students in Washington, D.C. Jim Dwyer of New York Newsday won the prize for commentary. Margo Jefferson of the New York Times took the award for criticism. The winner for editorial cartooning was Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution, and the award for editorial writing went to Jeffrey Good of Florida's St. Petersburg Times for his editorials urging reform of the state probate system. The award for spot news photography went to Carol Guzy of the Washington Post for her work in Haiti, and the prize for feature photography went to the Associated Press for staff coverage of the Rwanda tragedy. (MELANIE ANNE COOPER) This updates the article publishing. RADIO Radio worldwide in 1995 was marked with excesses. Four days before the sovereignty referendum in Quebec, the Montreal talk show host Pierre Brassard (posing as Prime Minister Jean Chrtien) telephoned Queen Elizabeth II. The French disc jockey Franois Meunier was fired from Skyrock and sued by several unions for saying four times "A dead policeman is more or less good news" after announcing the assassination of Nice policeman Georges Janvier. Set up discreetly on Berlin's FM band since September 13, 1994, Radio France International (RFI) was officially installed on May 17, 1995. The more popular France Inter had ceased broadcasting on Dec. 31, 1994, upon the departure of Allied troops after German reunification. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), a symbol of the Cold War, moved from Munich, Germany, where it was first set up in 1951, to Prague after the U.S. Congress reduced its budget. In Canada, Vancouver's alternative radio station (1040 AM or 88.5 Cable FM) introduced a program featuring unusual international recordings. It was the first of its kind in Vancouver, and the Filipino journalist Mel Tobias served as its host. In the U.S. nationally syndicated talk shows proliferated. Among the newcomers was former New York governor Mario Cuomo, who provided a liberal counterweight to popular conservatives like Rush Limbaugh. In the wake of the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, Okla., in April, Pres. Bill Clinton condemned "loud and angry voices" for fostering civil unrest, and conservative talk-show hosts complained that the president was unjustly referring to them. Catching much of the flak was the Watergate conspirator who had turned radio host, G. Gordon Liddy, who told listeners that he used drawings of President and Mrs. Clinton for target practice and who discussed on the air how to shoot federal agents. Infinity Broadcasting agreed in September to pay the government about $1.7 million to settle a host of outstanding indecency complaints against Howard Stern. Infinity did not concede that its star was indecent, saying that it agreed to the settlement only to clear the way for the approval of station acquisitions. Anticipating the relaxation of federal ownership restrictions, the big radio station groups got bigger by buying up other groups. Prices also increased. In November the Spanish Broadcasting System agreed to pay $83.5 million for the New York FM station WPAT. Undergirding the rising prices was the strong advertising market, with total revenues predicted to grow 8-9% in 1995 and top $11 billion. (RAMONA MONETTE S. FLORES; HARRY A. JESSELL; LAWRENCE B. TAISHOFF) When telephone service was disrupted by the terrorist bomb that ripped apart a federal building in Oklahoma City, amateur radio operators were soon on the scene providing emergency communications. They were also on call to aid rescue workers and displaced families as a series of hurricanes battered the southeastern U.S. and the Caribbean area throughout the late summer and early fall. According to the American Radio Relay League, some two million people around the world--680,000 in the U.S. alone--held licenses to transmit voice or data over private noncommercial amateur channels. In the U.S. the Federal Communications Commission ruled in February that hams could choose their own call signs, but squabbles over who could apply and how to apply for the "vanity" signs held up implementation. The FCC also ruled that amateurs operating in the high-frequency band could use automatic control systems for data communications. (HARRY A. JESSEL; LAWRENCE B. TAISHOFF) See also Business and Industry Review: Advertising; Telecommunications; Performing Arts: Motion Pictures; Music. This updates the article broadcasting.