Hartford publisher named Times executive

By KYLE PARKS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 19, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Marty Petty, an editor who rose to be publisher of the Hartford Courant, is joining the St. Petersburg Times to help guide the newspaper's business

[Times photo] Marty Petty has experience in both newsroom and business operations of newspapers.

operations.

Paul C. Tash, editor and president of the Times, on Tuesday named Petty to be executive vice president. She will be in charge of human resources, production, finance and technology, as well as Web publishing. Petty, 47, also will join the Times' board of directors.

Petty's experience in both the newsroom and business operations helped her stand out among a field of candidates, Tash said. For her part, Petty cited the Times' journalistic reputation as a reason to leave the paper she has been at for 17 years.

"Since I already work at one of the greatest papers in the country, there was always a short list if I were ever to make a move," she said. "St. Petersburg has a prestigious paper and a journalistic institution that's committed to the community."

Tash began discussions with Petty in June. In the past two weeks, their discussions grew more serious as they talked about the direction of newspapers.

"I really liked her experience in journalism, which is the central purpose of our organization," Tash said. Both Tash and Times chairman and chief executive Andrew Barnes were senior editors at the newspaper before taking their current roles.

Petty's role could expand as time goes on. Barnes is expected to retire in four years; he has selected Tash, 46, as his successor. "She has a chance to play a real leadership role in a time of generational change in the leadership of the company," Tash said.

At the Courant, Petty's challenge was to rebuild circulation in a city hit hard by the recession of the early 1990s. The newspaper has been successful in regaining those losses. For several years, its daily circulation has held steady at about 210,000, while Sunday circulation has grown to almost 300,000.

"To succeed, a newspaper has to give people something they can't get anywhere else," Petty said. "That's more true today than it's ever been."

Petty, who has a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, lived for 18 months at the U.S. government's leprosy home and research hospital in Carville, La., producing a photojournalism documentary with her husband, Mark.

After that, she became nationally known as a newspaper design and photography expert while at the Kansas City Star and Times.

Petty went to Hartford in 1983 to become managing editor, and later ran operations and marketing efforts before being named publisher three years ago. During that time, she earned a master's degree in management from Rensselaer at Hartford.

"I never would have dreamed I would end up in the business side of the newspaper," she said. "I remember when they asked me to take over operations, and I said, 'Are you kidding me?' "

Petty is well-respected at the Courant, the nation's oldest continuously published newspaper. When parent company Times Mirror Co. named her publisher, she became the first woman to run the newspaper in 218 years, since Hannah B. Watson followed her husband as owner after his death. Times Mirror was recently acquired by the Chicago-based Tribune Co.

In the Courant offices, Petty is known as an approachable sort -- her given name is Martha, "but don't ever call me anything but Marty," she said. She also has a gift for handling the wide-ranging responsibilities involved in running a large newspaper.

"She has a staggering capacity for remembering details," Courant editor Brian Toolan said. "But that never resulted in her micromanaging, it seemed to me."

When she starts her new job in September, Petty joins a newspaper that's working to recover from circulation declines. The Times' daily circulation fell 4.3 percent to 343,710 in the October 1999-March 2000 period, though it remains the largest daily newspaper in Florida.

Among the reasons: The newspaper stopped giving hefty discounts in many areas, while its circulation department was dealing with nightmarish in-house computer problems. On the other hand, the newspaper's advertising department has set revenue records each of the past two years, and Times Publishing Co., which has about $275-million in annual revenues, is solidly profitable.

Initially, one of Petty's challenges will be to improve the newspaper's ability to develop senior business managers from within. She also will oversee the newspaper's Internet efforts and plans to take a leading role in the community.

While at the Courant, she was involved in everything from the Metro Hartford Chamber of Commerce to the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. Petty and her husband, Mark, now a lawyer, have two children.

"A newspaper is an important force in helping a region develop its strategy," she said. "One of our jobs is to give back to the community and get involved in its economic development."

- Information from the Hartford Courant was used in this report.

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.