NEWHOUSE, SAMUEL IRVING

NEWHOUSE, SAMUEL IRVING (Solomon Neuhaus; 1895–1979), U.S. publisher. Born in New York City, Newhouse was the first of eight children of poor immigrant parents. Newhouse's initial venture came when, as a 16-year-old office boy in a law office, he was told by his employer to take charge of the Bayonne (N.J.) Times. He made the paper such a success that by age 21 he was earning $30,000 a year. In 1922 he acquired the floundering Staten Island (N.Y.) Advance for $98,000. Six years later he turned down an offer of $1,000,000 for it. His formula for success was to cut operating costs, stimulate advertising and circulation, and allow local editors complete autonomy. During the Depression of the 1930s he bought five newspapers, and continued adding others, including the Portland Oregonian and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. In 1955, in what was described as the biggest transaction in American newspaper history, he paid $18,642,000 for a package that included   the Birmingham (Alabama) News, the Huntsville (Alabama) Times, and four radio and television stations. In 1959, to diversify his holdings, Newhouse bought controlling interests in two important magazine publishing firms – Condé Nast (Vogue, Glamour, House and Garden) and Street and Smith (Mademoiselle and five other periodicals). He owned 15 daily newspapers, 12 national magazines, and nine radio and television stations. In 1960 he gave two million dollars to Syracuse University to establish the Newhouse Communications Center, intended to be the world's largest educational and research institute for the study of the mass media, and he made provision for its future maintenance. In the 1960s Newhouse purchased the Oregon Journal; the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper group; three Springfield (Massachusetts) newspapers – News, Republican, and Union; the Mobile Register, Mobile Press and Mississippi Press-Register; and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In 1976 he gained total ownership of the eight Booth newspapers and Parade Magazine. -ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: R. Meeker, Newspaperman: S.I. Newhouse and the Business of News (1983) (Irving Rosenthal / Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)