New York Herald Tribune - 20th Century and Merger

20th Century and Merger

Whitelaw Reid died in 1912 and was succeeded as publisher by his son, Ogden Mills Reid. The younger Reid devoted more time and resources to his newspaper and gradually started increasing circulation. Bennett died in 1918, and his paper was sold to Frank Munsey, an inveterate collector of publications, who developed a reputation for selling or merging newspapers to the animus of the newspapermen around the country.

Neither the Herald nor the Tribune was doing well in the 1920s, but the Herald, with its larger circulation, was in better shape than the Tribune. A merger was expected, with the widespread belief that the larger paper would absorb the smaller one. It came as a surprise, then, when Reid purchased the Herald from Munsey in 1924: at the Herald, a sign was hung up that said "Jonah just swallowed the whale."