Welcome to our world

The Daily Pilot staff

Editor’s note: It’s always hard to write about yourself. But the Pilot,

in one form or another, has been a key character in the Newport-Mesa

community for nearly the entire century and deserves some ink in any

millennium wrap-up. So here’s an admittedly biased look at the history of

the Daily Pilot.

The fact that you are reading this newspaper right now is probably just

short of a miracle.

You see, the Daily Pilot really shouldn’t exist anymore.

It was only a little more than 10 years ago that there were five small

daily newspapers trying to hold on in the tough Orange County market.

Today, there is one. The one you have in your hands.

But to understand what happened during the final decade of the 20th

Century, you need to travel back to 1907 -- when the Pilot’s

great-great-great grandfather came to town.

Newport Beach had only been a city for one year when M.H. Swain collected

$700 from the city to start a small weekly publication called The Newport

News.The paper survived, but never became a prosperous publication. It

changed hands a few times before the longtime publication divided into

three: The Newport News, The Balboa Times and The Costa Mesa Herald.A

fourth weekly paper entered the picture in 1934 by way of the Costa Mesa

Globe, a small publication founded by Len Martin. After newspapering in

the area for two short years, Martin acquired the Herald and named the

combined papers the Costa Mesa Globe Herald.Walter L. Burroughs, the

founder of the present-day Pilot, moved to Newport-Mesa shortly after

World War II. Burroughs, along with David Ring, acquired the weekly Costa

Mesa Globe Herald on Jan. 1, 1948. The paid circulation was less than

500.

Burroughs and Ring created a home for the publication at 124 Broadway in

Costa Mesa, close to Newport Boulevard. The Globe-Herald soon became the

area’s most successful publication.

In 1955, Burroughs moved the Globe Herald up the street to its present

location of 330 W. Bay St., Costa Mesa. Around the same time he bought a

Seal Beach newspaper from Admiral J.R. McKenney that went by the name of

the Pilot.Burroughs liked the name and in 1959, the first edition of the

Newport Harbor Pilot, the sister paper of the Globe-Herald, was

published.

Burroughs, who also played a major role in establishing UC Irvine,

combined his two five-day dailies into the Orange Coast Daily Pilot in

1961.

Former Newport Beach Mayor and City Councilwoman Evelyn Hart had fond

memories of Burroughs.

“We’d have lunch together and he was so extremely low key,” she said. “He

had this little office. But he was always interested in everything going

on and his wife 1/8Lucy 3/8 would always be there with him. They were a

happy married couple.

“But he had strong feelings about things. And I was always fortunate that

he supported me.”

In 1962, doctors told Burroughs he didn’t have long to live -- so he sold

the Pilot to the Times Mirror Co., which publishes the Los Angeles Times.

He remained as the publisher until he retired in 1964. Despite his

doctor’s warnings, Burroughs didn’t pass away until 1989.

Robert Weed became the next publisher of the newspaper. Together with

Times Mirror, editorial coverage and circulation of the paper expanded

from Seal Beach to San Clemente. Circulation reached 111,500 readers.

In the 1960s the one-level building on Bay Street housed a newsroom that

was quite different from today’s two-story version.

Male reporters used typewriters instead of computers and pencils and

erasers instead of the backspace key. Pages of copy were glued together

with paste before they were sent to the typesetter. And cigarette smoke

filled the air. Many reporters kept bottles of booze in their desk

drawers.

By 1972, the paper became a seven-day a week publication and rivaled the

Santa Ana Register.

But the paper was never as well-funded as the Register or the Times,

which made competition tough.

Daily Pilot Sports Editor Roger Carlson said the paper was in financial

straits when he arrived in 1964.

“We were just a small, struggling newspaper,” Carlson said.

But still, in the golden age of the Pilot -- from the 1970s to the early

1980s -- the newspaper was home to some of Orange County’s top

journalists. Reporters from that era include Peter King, now one of the

nation’s best column sits; Gary Granville, who went on to be elected

county clerk; and Jeff Parker, who became a best-selling novelist. The

editorial team frequently dominated newspaper contests, easily beating

the Times and Register.

But the good times didn’t last. Throughout the 1980s, the Pilot endured

frequent ownership changes and seven publishers. With each new set of

suits marching through the building, the newspaper slipped further into

the red.

In 1982, Times Mirror sold the Daily Pilot to Ingersoll, a large

newspaper company. Ingersoll also had a printing contract with USA Today,

and for several years, the Southern California version of that newspaper

was printed at the Pilot.

Adams Communications, a Connecticut publishing company, bought the paper

from Ingersoll. Adams quickly sold the Pilot to Page Group Publishing,

run by the flamboyant Robert E. Page, the former publisher of the Chicago

Sun-Times and Boston Herald.

The Pilot’s circulation dipped to under 10,000.

“The newspaper has done everything it can,” Page said at one meeting,

“but we still can’t piss off our last 10,000 readers.”

After a bitter fight with his investors, Page was forcibly removed from

his publisher’s office in 1991 and replaced by James Gressinger.

And the bad times continued. At one point, the Pilot reduced its

publishing schedule to three days a week. One Newport Beach city official

dubbed it the “Every Other Daily Pilot.” That experiment lasted only

months before the Pilot went back to being a daily.

However, the newspaper had just about run out of money in 1993 when it

was bought by Times Mirror, which pulled the Pilot back from the brink of

bankruptcy. Tom Johnson took over as publisher.

And then an interesting thing happened.

Los Angeles Times executives decided to bundle the Pilot with the Times.

In other words, subscribers couldn’t get the Pilot without the Times and

vice versa. And that not only boosted the Times circulation, it also

nearly tripled the Pilot circulation to 27,000 overnight.

Times executives have been encouraged enough by the partnership to start

15 mini-Pilots -- called Our Times -- throughout Southern California,

from Ventura to Ontario to San Clemente. The Times Community News

editorial division -- which has 23 newspapers in all -- is run by former

Pilot editor William Lobdell and former managing editor Steve Marble.

“I have enjoyed the Daily Pilot over all those years since I moved here

right out of college in the early ‘50s,” said former Mayor Hart. “There’s

nothing like a hometown newspaper.”

At about the same time, Pilot executives made a tactical decision --

narrow the paper’s focus, abandon international and national news and

concentrate on the two communities that have supported the paper from the

start: Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

“We were having an identity crisis,” said Marble, who joined the Daily

Pilot as a reporter in 1980. “But when we realized we were the hometown

newspaper, we knew what we had to do.”It was Marble, Lobdell and Johnson

who decided to remake the Daily Pilot into the present newspaper.

Lobdell, who lives in Costa Mesa and adopted Newport-Mesa as his hometown

after attending college at UCI, took over the editor reins in 1990 just

as the paper was passing through some of its darkest days.

“The person who brought me here said, ‘Wouldn’t you like to be a part of

saving your hometown newspaper?”’ Lobdell said. “I thought that was a

pretty noble calling.”

Lobdell said the day he arrived, there were only two ads in the paper.

The Pilot was clearly not succeeding as a full-service newspaper that

featured comics, Dear Abby, national and international news.

Johnson arrived with the company a year later in 1991. A newspaper

veteran, Johnson left his hometown of Pleasanton in Northern California

to take the position in Orange County.

But after only one day on the job he regretted making the move.

“I thought I made the biggest mistake,” Johnson said. “The Pilot was in

such disrepair.”

Instead of leaving, he rolled up his sleeves and made some serious

changes, including having the paper reacquaint itself with the community

it serves.

Johnson joined local community boards and the newspaper sponsored scores

of local events.

Meanwhile, the editorial team tried to restore the newspaper’s content to

its glory days. Much of the staff was replaced and the new journalists --

photographers, reporters and editors -- reshaped the paper.

The hard work paid off in 1994 when the paper won 11 awards from the

California Newspaper Publishers Assn., including the General Excellence

award as the best community newspaper in the state.

“When I first came to work in the latter part of 1986, the Daily Pilot

was like reading the Enquirer,” said Costa Mesa Police Chief Dave

Snowden. “I have some bad memories of the Daily Pilot.”

But Snowden said that’s changed.

“In my humble opinion, the Daily Pilot is the best source of information

on the coast,” he said. “It covers the issues in a non-biased and

positive way.”

Marian Bergeson, a former state senator and county supervisor, also

believes the Pilot is an important part of the Newport-Mesa puzzle.

“I don’t think there is anything that can supplant the local hometown

newspaper,” she said. “It stimulates agreements and disagreements.”

In 1999, the newspaper celebrated the second straight year of profits

after more than 20 years in the red.

“There aren’t many community dailies left in the country,” Johnson said.

“We’re happy to be one of those who survived to see the 21st Century. And I’m sure our readers are too.”

Bill Lobdell, Steve Marble, Tony Dodero and Amy R. Spurgeon contributed

to this report.