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Heinl Radio-Television News Service
8/9/50
"The civil action started last Fall by the Justice Depart¬ ment concerns the neighboring cities of Lorain and Elyria in nearby Lorain County. Lorain, a steel-making town on Lake Erie, has a population of about 45,000. Elyria is a county seat of 26,000 popula¬ tion.
"The Journal, Lorain’s only daily paper, is a lusty prosper¬ ous publication. It has not had daily competition since 1932, when its owners absorbed the old Lorain Tlmes-Herald.
"The weekly involved is the Lorain Sunday News, a shopping newspaper which publishes a Sunday issue.
11 The radio station, which figured more prominently in the trial as a Journal rival, is WEOL-FM, with studios in Elyria and Lorain. It barely made ends meet last year with a $2,600 profit.
"The Government charged that the Journal tried to monopolize the News and advertising in Lorain and used unfair business methods to hurt the radio station and the Sunday News.
"D. P. Self, business manager of the Journal, hedged as a hostile witness called by the Government, but finally admitted, under judicial prodding for a direct answer, that 'We did', in response to the question:
"'Did you tell Lorain Journal advertisers that they could not continue to advertise in the newsoaper if they advertised over Radio Station WEOL?'
"When Samuel A. Horvitz, publisher of the Journal, testified as the defense’s only witness, he frankly said his paper discouraged the merchants from radio selling campaigns and took advantage of 30day cancellation clauses to cancel contracts of merchants who persist¬ ed.
"In defense of the policy toward merchants who used WEOL, Horvitz insisted that the Journal had the right to reject or accept what advertising it pleased. He maintained also that this policy was not unfair to the Lorain merchants, because the Journal for years had 'protected' them by refusing advertising from out-of-Lorain merchants.
"What had looked like a minor trial point suddenly became important. In their final arguments, both lawyers dwelt at length on the interstate commerce issue. If the newspaper and radio station were not engaged in State-to-State business, then the Federal laws did not apply.
"The fast-talking Kramer argued that so long as a single electronic note from WEOL was heard outside Ohio, the station was in interstate commerce. Earlier he had put on out-of-State WEOL listen¬ ers as witnesses. He contended that the Journal, through its nation¬ al news, advertising and supply connections, also was in interstate business.
Fulton argued that while WEOL, mechanically speaking may not be purely local in view of its out-of-Ohio air range, it nevertheless is purely local as a business enterprise. Both the Journal and WEOL are only "incidentally" involved in Interstate commerce, he asserted.
"The Lorain Journal case marked the first time that radio¬ newspaper advertising rivalry had figured in an antitrust suit. Even newspaper-newspaper rivalry over ads is a fairly new anti-trust topic."
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