PM (newspaper)

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PM was a leftist daily newspaper in New York City published by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948, and bankrolled by eccentric Chicago millionaire Marshall Field III.

The paper employed some radical journalists, among them some known members of the Communist Party. This led to widespread accusations that the paper was Communist-dominated, but a thesis by Anya Schiffrin concluded that the paper frequently opposed the policies of the Communist Party and got into editorial fights with the CP's paper, the Daily Worker.

The name stood for "Picture Magazine"; it borrowed many elements from weekly newsmagazines, such as many large photos and, at first, being bound with staples. It accepted no advertising in an attempt to be free of pressure from business interests. These departures from the norms of newspapering created excitement in the industry; 11,000 people applied for the 150 jobs available when the paper began.

Circulation averaged at 165,000, but the paper never managed to sell the 225,000 copies a day it would need to break even. According to a June 21, 1966 memo from Ingersoll to Mrs. Leighner [found in the Boston University Gottlieb Archives]:

"Before the end of the War [World War II] it was actually operating in the black...In my opinion at the time and these twenty years later--PM's death is most soundly attributable to a sustained and well-organized plot originating amongst Field's friends and associates in the business world who alienated Field's loyalty to PM and to me. The hostility was there from the beginning; the plot came together under the auspices of a man named Harry Cushing who was a retainer of Field's. The principal and successful offensive of this group was that it had as its objective Field's distraction from PM by persuading him to start the Sun in Chicago. Once they committed Field to the Sun venture, the end was inevitable. I can diagram it for you but merely put it on record here."

The paper was sold in 1948 and published its final issue on June 22. The next day it was replaced by the New York Star, which folded in early 1949.

Dr. Seuss was a frequent contributor to PM's editorial page. Crockett Johnson's comic strip Barnaby debuted in the paper in 1942. Walt Kelly's comic strip Pogo first appeared in PM's successor, the Star, in 1948.

Legendary journalist I. F. Stone was the paper's Washington correspondent.