He's Back p.

By: George Garneau

By popular demand, Hirschfeld sent packing and Rupert Murdoch returns in an effort to save the topsy-turvy New York Post
RUPERT MURDOCH RETURNED triumphantly to the bankrupt New York Post March 30 after a coup by journalists and creditors ended parking lot millionaire Abe Hirschfeld's two-week reign as publisher.
Murdoch, who has said he lost $150 million when he owned the Post from 1976 to 1988, is the fourth publisher in three months.
A lifelong newspaperman who heads the $7 billion-a-year News Corp. of Australia, he follows a string of increasingly unstable publishers who had no newspaper experience and who drove the paper to the edge of insolvency.
Murdoch rode a wave of support, stretching from the nation's capital to the state's capital, founded on the premise that he offers the best hope, financially and journalistically, for keeping the Post in business.
For about $3 million?$2.5 million to reimburse Hirschfeld and $500,000 in operating cash that Hirschfeld had committed but failed to pay?Murdoch assumed management control for 60 to 90 days.
During that period, Murdoch has to negotiate a purchase agreement with creditors and unions and to win a Federal Communications Commission waiver allowing him to own the Post and WYNY-TV Channel 5 at the same time.
With staffing now at about 700?just over half what it was when he owned it before?Murdoch cannot cut much more. Instead, he will focus on work rules, he told the New York Times.
Murdoch was forced to sell the Post after politicians, led by Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy, a prime target of Murdoch's Post and Boston Herald, killed chances for waiver extensions. But most of the political opposition has evaporated in a campaign to save the irreverent and so far unsinkable tabloid.
Gov. Mario Cuomo, a liberal Democrat and another frequent recipient of the conservative Post's scorn, spearheaded efforts for a Murdoch return because "I respect the value of a vigorous, independent, journalistic voice."
In a letter to Rep. John Dingell, whose committee oversees the FCC, Cuomo pleaded for a waiver so that Murdoch can see the Post through "the most severe financial crisis in its 192-year history."
Cuomo argued that FCC enforcement of its cross-ownership rule barring a single owner from running a television and newspaper in the same market would kill the Post and turn on its head the rule's goal of preserving media diversity.
After creditors and journalists pleaded to a bankruptcy judge that Hirschfeld was refusing to pay bills and withholding some paychecks, the court removed Hirschfeld from control. The following Monday, Murdoch's offer was approved.
Within hours on March 29, Murdoch led his new management team into the Post's newsroom to cheers and applause in what he called "an emotional experience."
He praised the news staff's "great courage" and editor Pete Hamill's leadership.
Hamill, a novelist and popular local columnist whose firing by Hirschfeld inspired a mutiny in which Post news columns attacked its publisher, was offered a column but refused.
Murdoch replaced him with Ken Chandler, former Post managing editor, Boston Herald editor and executive at Fox Television's A Current Affair.
Pat Purcell, publisher of the Herald, took the same title at the Post.
In a newsroom pep talk, the Australian-born naturalized American citizen called the Times "elitist," the Daily News "static" and Newsday "impotent."
By March 31, Murdoch journalism hit the front page again in a Post "exclusive" about how Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita" who shot her boyfriend's wife, danced nude in her jail cell.
In the euphoria of Murdoch's rescue, the Times offered a sobering editorial praising the paper's valiant journalists but castigating Murdoch's brand of journalism as "politically and professionally dishonest."
In a style that "runs counter to the ethical standards" of post-World War II journalism, his papers slant news coverage to help his friends, attack enemies, promote "reflexive conservatism" and honor sensationalism over accuracy, the Times editorialized.
The Daily News, under real estate investor Mortimer Zuckerman, took its own swipe. It printed a news photo of Murdoch entering the Post newsroom, only unbeknown to him a sign in front of him on a cubicle wall said "tabloid hack."
The Post's bankruptcy filing said it lost over $7 million last year. A financial executive said it was currently losing $200,000 to $300,000 a week on revenues of about $1.5 million.
The Post's circulation has slid to about 400,000, from more than 900,000 under Murdoch. It has about 5% of advertising market share, after the Times, Daily News and New York Newsday.
In what may be the only explanation for taking over a paper virtually without hope of making money, Murdoch, whose publicly traded News Corp. Australia produced $385 million in profit on over $7.66 billion in revenue and refinanced $8 billion in debt last year, told the Post staff:
"Publishing is not about making money. It's about achieving things and improving society."
But News Corp. executive vice president and general counsel Arthur Siskind said, "We are not buying the paper unless we have appropriate agreements with the unions and with creditors to make ownership of the paper financially feasible."
Murdoch has abandoned the costly Wingo game that increased losses, but built circulation, during his first stewardship, Siskind said.
The chance to own a paper in the world media capital of New York is "a real opportunity, and we don't see the financial effect on News Corp. as being significant at all," Siskind said.
"We hope to at least break even," he said, and any losses News Corp. did absorb would be "infinitessimal compared to the rest of our operations."
Several groups have voiced opposition to granting a permanent waiver of the FCC's cross-ownership rule.