ABSTRACT
By the late 1920s the World was in trouble. Readership was down, advertising revenues had failed to keep pace with rising costs, and the paper had shrunk to half the size of the rival Times. Walter Lippmann continually complained to Swope about the thinness of the news coverage and the obvious bias of the reporting. Lippmann thought the paper should not stay stuck in that field, but move on to something better. Lippmann pleaded that men who had served the paper for many years could not be fired summarily. Despite his intercession the cuts continued, and it was clear that the good old days were over. Rumors circulated that the World might be up for sale. The death of the World was a sad day for American journalism, yet the paper had ceased to be its old self long before 1931. Even before Roy Howard bought the paper he asked Lippmann to join the new World-Telegram as editorial director.
