New York Herald Tribune
1924-1967
The New York Herald Tribune was a newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald. It was home to respected writers like Dorothy Thompson, Red Smith, and Walter Kerr. However due to competition from the New York Times for advertising revenue, the merged paper was not profitable. 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). 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 Times in sheer volume of news it would be faster, feistier and funnier. In this period the Herald Tribune was radically re-designed, 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 Sixties did not help the paper's balance sheet. On May 5, 1967 the paper folded for good.