By: (AP) Retired newspaper executive James H. Hale, who was publisher of
The Kansas City Star during a 15-year stint in which the newspaper won three Pulitzer Prizes, died Sunday. He was 75.
Hale died of natural causes at a hospital in Denison, Texas, said his son, Robert Hale, publisher of
The Walton Tribune in Monroe, Ga.
He retired seven years ago from his final job, as president and CEO of the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, the former joint business and publishing arm of the
Chronicle and
Examiner.
Hale took the San Francisco post five months after his December 1992 retirement as publisher of
The Kansas City Star. He also was CEO of the
Fort Worth (Texas)
Star-Telegram in the mid-1970s, and was owner or an executive at other papers in Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida.
"Jim Hale's combination of intelligence and business intuitiveness was unmatched in the newspaper industry," said Wes Turner, who worked with Hale in Kansas City and now is publisher of the
Star-Telegram.
Art Brisbane, current publisher of the
Star, credits Hale with raising business standards everywhere in the company. "He was also a truly memorable character," Brisbane said. "All of us who worked with him knew that long after Jim left these halls we'd be telling Jim Hale stories."
Paul Stevens, chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Kansas City, said Hale never forgot his humble beginnings in the newspaper business. "The lessons he learned from his days with smaller newspapers, which he was never hesitant to tell you about, were put to great use when he was running multimillion-dollar newspaper operations in Fort Worth, Kansas City, and San Francisco," Stevens said.
Bob Woodworth, president and CEO of Pulitzer Inc. in St. Louis, is among many executives around the country who considered Hale a mentor.
"He had such a tremendous influence on my life -- way beyond the newspaper business," said Woodworth, who succeeded Hale as publisher of the
Star in 1992 and serves on the AP board of directors. "He was always teaching. He had a passion for the business that is rare to see today. He was, as he liked to say, a person of substance."
Hale often said that one of his most difficult decisions in emotional terms in Kansas City was an easy one economically: In March 1990, the afternoon
Kansas City Star was merged with the morning
Kansas City Times.
The following year, the paper won the third Pulitzer Prize of his tenure, for a series on mismanagement in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Hale called the Pulitzers one of his greatest achievements. "I was proud to make the resources available to do those stories," he said.
Hale's survivors include his son and daughter, Nancy Hale Sowell.
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