“A newspaper has to set a course and create the impression it knows what it’s about before it has much to sell,” [Kilgore said.] Success would come, if at all, from strong content that would attract new readers, who would, only then, prove attractive to advertisers… Above all, in order to start this chain reaction, the paper needed to be distinctive. Editing the paper “with one eye on the Times was insufficient and, ultimately, self-defeating,” [he said].
From Dean Starkman's CJR review of Restless Genius: Barney Kilgore, The Wall Street Journal, and the Invention of Modern Journalism (2009; St. Martin’s Press) by Richard J. Tofel
Barney Kilgore is regarded as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, newspaper editors in modern history.
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