North American Newspaper Alliance

Last updated
North American Newspaper Alliance
FormerlyBell Syndicate-North American Newspaper Alliance
Type Print syndication
IndustryMedia
Founded1922;101 years ago (1922)
Defunct1980;43 years ago (1980)
Successor United Feature Syndicate
Headquarters
U.S.
Area served
United States, Canada
Key people
John Neville Wheeler, Grantland Rice, Joseph Alsop, Michael Stern, Lothrop Stoddard, Dorothy Thompson, George Schuyler, Pauline Frederick, Sheilah Graham Westbrook, Edna Ferber, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Ronne, Ira Wolfert, Ian Fleming, Lucianne Goldberg
ProductsDistribution of news articles, columns,and other features to newspapers
Owner John Neville Wheeler (1930–1951)
Ernest Cuneo (1951–1963)
Divisions Bell Syndicate
Ernest Hemingway (centre) while reporting on the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance in 1937. Bundesarchiv Bild 183-84600-0001, Ivens und Hemingway bei Ludwig Renn, Chef der XI. Internationalen Brigaden.jpg
Ernest Hemingway (centre) while reporting on the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance in 1937.

The North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) was a large newspaper syndicate in operation between 1922 and 1980. NANA employed writers such as Grantland Rice, Joseph Alsop, Michael Stern, Lothrop Stoddard, Dorothy Thompson, George Schuyler, Pauline Frederick, Sheilah Graham Westbrook, Edna Ferber, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway (who covered the Spanish Civil War for NANA).

Contents

History

Foundation

NANA was founded in 1922 by 50 major newspapers in the United States and Canada led by Harry Chandler of the Los Angeles Times and Loring Pickering of the San Francisco Chronicle . [1]

Wheeler era

Publishing executive John Neville Wheeler became general manager of NANA in 1930, which soon absorbed the Bell Syndicate, a similar organization Wheeler had founded around 1916, although both continued to operate individually under joint ownership. NANA continued to acquire other syndicates over time, including Associated Newspapers and the Consolidated Press Association (at that point headed by David Lawrence). [1]

In the 1930s and 1940s, NANA was known for its selections for the College Football All-America Team, using four well-known coaches each year. One of NANA's most famous correspondents was Ernest Hemingway, who was sent to Spain in 1937 to report on the Spanish Civil War. [2] Hemingway based one of his best-known novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls , published in 1940, on his experiences there. [3]

Edith Ronne was a correspondent for the NANA syndicate during the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (1947-1948). Jackie Ronne, Stonington Island, Antarctica (January 1 1947).jpg
Edith Ronne was a correspondent for the NANA syndicate during the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (1947-1948).

In 1943, Ira Wolfert won an international Pulitzer Prize for Telegraphic Reporting for his field reports for NANA during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Among NANA's other notable stories from this period were those about the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition, which in 1947 and 1948 researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica. Edith Ronne, wife of the expedition leader, was a correspondent for the syndicate, posting dispatches from Antarctica for the duration of the expedition. She named a landform there, Cape Wheeler, in honor of her editor, John Neville Wheeler.

Cuneo era

By the early 1950s the syndicate was being overshadowed by more powerful news syndicates, and in March 1951 it was purchased by a small group of investors led by Ernest Cuneo, [4] formerly associated with British Security Coordination and the OSS, and Ivar Bryce. They gave the job of European Vice President to the writer Ian Fleming, who was also their mutual friend. [5]

Ernest Cuneo and the Bell Syndicate-North American Newspaper Alliance group acquired the McClure Newspaper Syndicate in September 1952, with Louis Ruppel installed as president and editor. [4]

Cuneo acquired full control over NANA in the mid-1950s and served as president until 1963 when he sold it. However, he remained with NANA as a columnist and military analyst from 1963 to 1980. [6]

Because of Cuneo's association with former members of American and British intelligence, including Fleming and Bryce, and because some writers in the Cuneo era had alleged links to the CIA, critics have suggested that NANA under his tenure was a front for espionage. [7]

Later years

A notable event late in the syndicate’s history occurred when a freelance correspondent, Lucianne Goldberg joined the press corps covering candidate George McGovern during the 1972 presidential campaign, claiming to be a reporter for the Women's News Service, an affiliate of NANA. In reality, she was being paid $1,000 a week by Richard Nixon operative Murray Chotiner for regular reports about happenings on the campaign trail. She said "They were looking for really dirty stuff. . . Who was sleeping with who, what the Secret Service men were doing with the stewardesses, who was smoking pot on the plane that sort of thing." [8] [9]

NANA and Bell McClure were acquired by United Feature Syndicate in 1972. [10] The news service discontinued operations in 1980.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Hemingway</span> American author and journalist (1899–1961)

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which included his iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.

<i>For Whom the Bell Tolls</i> 1940 novel by Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Print syndication</span> Sale of news items to other news outlets

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Ronne</span> American explorer (1919–2009)

Jackie Ronne was an American explorer of Antarctica and the first woman in the world to be a working member of an Antarctic expedition (1947–48). She is also the namesake of the Ronne Ice Shelf.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Media</span> Defunct print syndication service

United Media was a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core businesses were the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association.

United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (UFS) is a large American editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1919. Originally part of E. W. Scripps Company, it was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. United Features has syndicated many notable comic strips, including Peanuts, Garfield, Li'l Abner, Dilbert, Nancy, and Marmaduke.

The Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) was an expedition from 1947–1948 which researched the area surrounding the head of the Weddell Sea in Antarctica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucianne Goldberg</span> American literary agent and author (1935–2022)

Lucianne Goldberg, also known as Lucianne Cummings, was an American literary agent and author. She was named as one of the "key players" in the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton, as it was she who controversially advised Monica Lewinsky's confidante Linda Tripp to tape Lewinsky's phone calls about their affair. The 20-hour recording became crucial to the Starr investigation. She was the mother of Jonah Goldberg, a conservative political commentator, and Joshua Goldberg, a Republican nominee for the New York City Council.

Jimmy Cannon was a sports journalist inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his coverage of the sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Neville Wheeler</span>

John Neville Wheeler was an American newspaperman, publishing executive, magazine editor, and writer. He was born in Yonkers, New York, graduated Columbia University, was a veteran of World War I serving in France as a field artillery lieutenant, began his newspaper career at the New York Herald, and became managing editor of Liberty. He was married to Elizabeth T. Wheeler and had one daughter, the film editor Elizabeth Wheeler, who died in 1956. He is known primarily as the founder of several newspaper syndicates, of which the largest was the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), and through which he employed some of the most noted writing talents of his day.

<i>Dateline: Toronto</i> Posthumous collection of Ernest Hemingways journalism

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Ernest L. Cuneo was an American lawyer, newspaperman, author, and intelligence liaison. He was also a professional football player in the National Football League.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McClure Newspaper Syndicate</span>

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The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 43rd Street and later at 229 West 43rd Street. It also reprinted comic strips in book form.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hotel Florida (Madrid)</span> Hotel in Madrid, Spain

The Hotel Florida was situated in Callao Square in central Madrid, Spain. It was built in 1924 and was used as a base by many of the foreign correspondents stationed in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. While based in Spain as a correspondent for the North American News Association (NANA), Ernest Hemingway stayed at the hotel, where he wrote a play. The hotel was demolished in 1964 and a department store was built on the site.

Associated Newspapers, Inc. was a print syndication service of columns and comic strips that was in operation from 1912 to c. 1966. The syndicate was originally a cooperative of four newspapers: The New York Globe, the Chicago Daily News, The Boston Globe, and the Philadelphia Bulletin. Associated Newspapers was led by Henry Herbert McClure (1874-1938), a cousin of S. S. McClure, founder of the McClure Syndicate, the first American newspaper syndicate. In 1930, Associated Newspapers was acquired by and became a subsidiary of the Bell Syndicate. The syndicate's most successful, long-running strip was Gladys Parker's Mopsy.

<i>By-Line: Ernest Hemingway</i> Posthumous collection of Ernest Hemingways journalism

By-Line: Ernest Hemingway is a 1967 collection of 77 of the articles that Ernest Hemingway wrote as a journalist between 1920 and 1956. The collection was edited by William White, a professor of English literature and journalism at Wayne State University, and a regular contributor to The Hemingway Review. By-Line: Ernest Hemingway has been translated into fourteen languages and made The New York Times Best Seller list.

References

  1. 1 2 Watson, Elmo Scott. "CHAPTER VIII: Recent Developments in Syndicate History 1921-1935," 'History of Newspaper Syndicates. Archived at Stripper's Guide.
  2. Speiser and Easterling-Hallman Collection of Ernest Hemingway, "The Spanish Civil War and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories"
  3. Mitgang, Herbert (August 30, 1988). "Hemingway On Spain: Unedited Reportage". The New York Times Book Review. Hemingway later turned his experiences on the Loyalist side into the play "The Fifth Column" and the novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls"...
  4. 1 2 Knoll, Erwin. "McClure Syndicate Sold to Bell-NANA". Editor & Publisher (September 6, 1952).
  5. Jennet Conant, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, 2008. p. 332
  6. "Ernest L. Cuneo, 82; Owned Newspaper Service", The New York Times, March 5, 1988. Accessed April 23, 2010.
  7. "NORTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER ALLIANCE". NameBase . Retrieved 2012-01-20.[ dead link ]
  8. "Writer Declares She Was G.O.P. Spy In M'Govern Camp". New York Times . August 19, 1973.
  9. Ackerman, Elise (February 23, 1998). "An agent drawn to scandal: Lucianne Goldberg's taste for controversy". U.S. News & World Report.[ dead link ]
  10. Goldberg To Retire From United Media

Further reading