NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Donald E. Newhouse, president of one of the largest family-controlled publishing companies in the nation and a former board chairman of the Associated Press, died Tuesday. He was 96 and died at his home in New Jersey, his family said.<\/p>\n
During his career, Newhouse served as president of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and head of Advance Publications\u2019 newspaper group, which he navigated into the internet age.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou reveled in his company. He filled you with energy and humor when you felt doubtful and weak,\u201d said Anna Wintour, the global editorial director of Vogue and Conde Nast\u2019s chief content officer. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was scrupulous about not interfering in editorial business, but if you turned to him for counsel, he invariably offered judicious advice,\u201d she said in an obituary released Tuesday night by the Newhouse family. <\/p>\n
Newhouse, who lived in New York, spent nearly 50 years overseeing the 35 newspapers of Advance Publications, the media business started by his late father, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr., in 1922. His older brother, S.I. Newhouse Jr., was chairman of the company and oversaw Conde Nast magazines. He died in 2017.<\/p>\n
Louis D. Boccardi, retired president and chief executive of the AP, said Newhouse was an extraordinary chairman for the cooperative.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis voice was never the loudest in the room, but it was often the wisest,\u201d Boccardi said. Newhouse was instinctively private, but behind that, Boccardi said, was a generous man, at home anywhere and curious about everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe could come across as self-effacing and deferential, but in Don\u2019s skilled hands those were qualities that made him an enormously strong and effective leader,\u201d Boccardi said. \u201cYou don\u2019t often see the adjective \u2018warm\u2019 attached to a titan of industry, but it applied to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
A man who didn\u2019t chase the spotlight<\/p>\n
Newhouse, born in 1929, was known for staying out of the public eye. A reporter once asked him to list the biggest chances he took in his career. The answer: \u201cInviting your questions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The usually reserved Newhouse did step into the spotlight when he took on the role of chairman of the Newspaper Assn. of America from 1993 to 1994 and then chairman of the AP board of directors from 1997 to 2002. He had served on the AP board for nine years before becoming its chairman.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a smart and shrewd businessman but as thoughtful and kind a man as you\u2019ll find. Being in his presence was always a joy,\u201d said Doug Clifton, editor of one of Newhouse\u2019s papers, the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, from 1999 to 2007.<\/p>\n
Newhouse attended Syracuse University but never graduated, heading into the family\u2019s newspaper business instead. He would regularly visit his newspapers but left the ultimate authority of running them to his publishers.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach of our newspapers operates independently, with publishers who are strong, who set policy for their individual organizations and who have the authority and responsibility of carrying out the policies they set,\u201d he said in 1993 when taking over as chairman of the newspaper association.<\/p>\n
Newhouse was known for spending money to make sure that papers got the best stories. Jim Willse, editor of the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., from 1995 until 2010, said he would give \u201cus all the resources we needed to make the Ledger really special.\u201d Willse said Newhouse loved newspapers and newspaper people.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe especially enjoyed it when we\u2019d have a story about some politician caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or a spicy feature about stuffed shirts behaving badly,\u201d Willse said.<\/p>\n
Newhouse\u2019s philosophy of spending money to produce quality coverage and a hands-off approach toward his editors led to many successes, including multiple Pulitzers.<\/p>\n
Many of those newspapers were able to thrive and remain profitable because they dominated their market, but Newhouse said he was very much aware of what he called the \u201cdramatically changing media landscape\u201d and how people get their news.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 15th-century revolution was epitomized by the printing of the Gutenberg Bible; ours by Ted Turner\u2019s cable news network and by web-based news sites \u2014 news in real time from anywhere to everywhere,\u201d he said in 2004 at the rededication of a communications school named after his father at Syracuse University.<\/p>\n
Three years later, he told one of his papers, the Post-Standard of Syracuse, N.Y., that newspapers can survive \u201cby producing content that is relevant, interesting, accurate and entertaining for newspapers and the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n
He steered through financial struggles<\/p>\n
Yet the papers did ultimately struggle financially.<\/p>\n
Advance was known in the industry for a pledge that employees who weren\u2019t in a union would have jobs regardless of economic downturns or technological advances. In 2009, the company announced that the pledge would be withdrawn.<\/p>\n
The company also moved away from daily publishing of several papers. In 2012, it announced that the Post-Standard; the Times-Picayune in New Orleans; the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Penn.; and the Birmingham News, the Press-Register of Mobile and the Huntsville Times, all in Alabama, would cease daily publication and would only offer print editions on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Those changes were accompanied by hundreds of layoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis conservative approach left both the papers and its employees somewhat unprepared for the realities of the internet,\u201d said Thomas Maier, who wrote a 1994 biography of the family.<\/p>\n
Newhouse\u2019s eldest son, Steven, spearheaded the company\u2019s growth on the internet and on mobile devices. Steven Newhouse is currently co-president of Advance Publications.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad spent his life in the newspaper business and was devoted to it, built it up and enjoyed many good years. When it became more challenging, he was first in line to work through, finding solutions to keep the local journalism franchise going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Newhouse is also survived by another son, Michael, daughter Katherine Mele and grandchildren. His wife, Susan, died in 2015.<\/p>\n
Mayerowitz writes for the Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Donald E. Newhouse, president of one of the largest family-controlled publishing companies in the nation and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[138251,1507,1804,2072,1431,138252,138254,48,52,51,47,50,49,138250,100,27096,138253,4739,6283,138255,72],"class_list":["post-334217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-advance-publications","tag-chairman","tag-company","tag-editor","tag-family","tag-internet-age","tag-jim-willse","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-newhouse","tag-news","tag-newspaper","tag-newspaper-publisher","tag-paper","tag-president","tag-syracuse-university","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}