PUBLISHER’S PAGE

Introducing our new editor…



Six months ago the senior editors and I sat down to make a crucial decision. Then into its sixth year of publication, this magazine was doing very well by every index of the publishing business. We had just racked up more awards than any of the newspapers in the local press competition. Ad dollars were up 25 percent over the previous year. Paid circulation had hit its highest level yet.

But we saw cause for concern. Since its conception, this magazine had been run basically by the same group of people. While it would have been easy for us to sit back and bask in the reflected warmth of the magazine’s success, we knew that warmth wouldn’t last forever; magazines just don’t work that way. Without an injection of new blood, the magazine could become stale and tired. And while that might happen slowly, we worried that we might be the last to see it.

So we decided to turn the problem into an opportunity by using our magazine’s success to attract the best possible person to D as editor-in-chief. The new editor’s commission would be to take this magazine into its next era of growth, to recruit new writers and artists to our pages, and to give us all a fresh perspective on Dallas.

David Legge joined us just two weeks before this issue went to press (so he really can’t be blamed for everything in it). David and 1 started visiting with each other long distance in January. It was easy enough to be impressed with his credentials, which was why we were talking in the first place. But it was just as easy, after I got to know him, to be impressed with his judgment, his knowledge of magazine journalism, and his ambition to edit a magazine that would compete with the best in the country.

David comes to us from Newsweek, where he headed the new venture development group. He started in journalism as a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times and from there went to The Washington Post, where he was a founding editor of its innovative Style section. After five years as news editor with the section, he moved over to the editorial page, where he was assistant editor for three years. He went from the Post to its corporate sister, Newsweek, to become assistant to the publisher, and was chosen to lead the new venture group.

The editorial staff joins me in welcoming David and introducing him to our readers. In recruiting him, we accomplished exactly what we had set out to do: bring a major new talent to Dallas who will help us in shaping this city’s future.



… and our newest magazine.

It’s been a busy month. As one key executive arrived, another departed: Bernie Kraft, who has underpinned the marketing and operations end of our business for five years, has taken on the challenge of running our newest sister magazine, Houston City.

And a challenge it is. Houston is the fastest growing major metropolitan area in America-although it’s sometimes hard to tell which is growing faster, the population or the problems-and it will be Houston City’s job to help its readers make the most out of living there. In that job, the magazine is off to an impressive start, with 50,000 paid circulation.

Of course, like the experienced publishing professional that he is, Bernie immediately sought out the best talent he could find: Wade Leftwich, our managing editor for the last year, has signed on as managing editor of Houston City.

Here at D, we foresee a healthy kind of in-trastate competition as well as a new opportunity. Effective with this issue, a new combination discount rate will be applied for advertising in any two of our three magazines: D, Houston City, or Texas Homes. We figure that if those guys in Houston do as well as they say they will, they can help us do a little better.

Elsewhere in the Media.



My personal thumbs up to the Times Herald for taking the lead in deciding to refuse advertising for massage parlors, modeling studios, and escort services – in other words, for open prostitution. The Herald probably won’t lose that much revenue from the decision, so it can’t be called an act of great moral courage. But it is an act of leadership, and more than we’ve seen from the management of a Dallas newspaper in a long time.

WFAA-TV’s longstanding commitment to broadcast journalism has reaped high ratings, lots of awards, and presumably, a nice return on the investment in advertising revenue. The side benefit is that it has also caused a vast improvement in the competition. Night after night our three network stations are producing better newscasts than can be found in any city anywhere, with the possible exception of Los Angeles. In media circles, the big question is how local stations will fare once cable begins to pull away audiences. I believe our stations have already found the answer by providing a service, namely the local news, that cable can’t provide and doing it with refreshing enterprise and dedication.

□ I’ve been impressed throughout the Irancrisis with how much more honest televisioncan be in its reporting than the daily press.While the newspapers continue to runpyramid-style reports emboldened by toughsounding headlines, television has beenquick to catch inconsistencies in the “official” reports and to lace reportage with ahealthy dose of skepticism about each government’s motives and competence. Duringthe first days of the crisis, television coveragewas heavily criticized – and perhaps rightly so – for contributing to the enthusiasmof Iranian crowds. But as the crisis has draggedon, 1 believe correspondents have morethan compensated for that unfortunate con-sequence of their medium by making us ascitizens less dependent on governmentspokesmen and more capable of formingour own judgments about the capability -and culpability – of our officials.

□ The accident that killed Lynn Haag,publishing director of the Chamber’s DallasMagazine, took from us one of ourindustry’s brightest talents. Anyone whoknew Lynn felt immediately the impact of asearing personal loss. Our sympathies arewith her family.