Newsday: A Candid History of the Respectable Tabloid

With financial backing from her third husband, Harry Guggenheim of the boundlessly wealthy mining family, Alicia Patterson, daughter of the owner of the New York Daily News , founded a newspaper on Long Island in 1940. Cynics called Newsday ``Alicia's toy,'' but she had the drive and courage to make the paper succeed. Before her death in 1956, however, her husband wrested control of the paper from her; later, in 1970, this conservative Republican, who began to see a ``dangerous leftist'' behind every typewriter, sold the tabloid to the Chandler family of the Los Angeles Times, mistakenly believing they would make it a voice of reactionaryism. As recounted here, the corporate history up to the time of the sale is riveting, the subsequent years less so, but Keeler, editor of Newsday 's Sunday magazine, while unfailingly respectful of the paper, is unsparingly frank about the employees, naming the alcoholics, gamblers, male chauvinists and crooks as well as paying tribute to the heroes and heroines. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.)