The end of The Morning Telegraph
The Morning Telegraph was founded in 1833, more than 60 years before the Daily Racing Form. Both were bought by Moe Annenberg in the 1920s.
Excerpt from The First Century: Daily Racing Form Chronicles 100 Years of Thoroughbred Racing by Joe Hirsch (1996)
Daily Racing Form was America's racing newspaper in the Midwest and West, but in the East it had to share the market with The Morning Telegraph. Both were Annenberg publications; they shared common business, statistical and editorial staffs, but as a concession to the New York print unions they had separate press rooms in the same building. Perhaps because of tradition, The Morning Telegraph, with its broadsheet format, was more popular with the public. However, the Daily Racing Form, a tabloid, continued to be offered in the East until a decision was made to discontinue in 1951.
In a similar vein, The Morning Telegraph was briefly offered to the racing public in the Midwest and West during the 1950s. Its broadsheet mode, so popular in the East, was rejected by those to whom the tabloid size was the norm. Broadsheet remained the choice in the East until 1993.
In the 1950s, New York City was served by eight daily newspapers: the Times, Herald-Tribune, Daily News and Daily Mirror in the morning and the World-Telegram, the Sun, the Post and the Journal-American in the afternoon. One by one these papers closed, in part due to pressure from the International Typographical Union under the direction of Bert Powers.
Daily Racing management, seeking to avoid the kind of long, debilitating strikes that preceded the closing of the majority of New York's newspapers, purchased a piece of property in Hightstown, New Jersey, just off the New Jersey Turnpike. Midway between New York and Philadelphia, the property was just outside the jurisdiction of the New York ITU.
A modern newspaper plant was constructed, and it opened in November of 1971, just as talks were under way between The Morning Telegraph and the New York Typographical Union. The paper that was printed at the Hightstown plant was Daily Racing Form's first venture into 'cold type' and was sold in Mid-Atlantic locations while the New York office of The Morning Telegraph continued to print that paper.
Negotiations between the paper and the union were stalemated and going downhill in the spring of 1972. As the New York union called for strike, it was announced on April 1 that The Morning Telegraph would no longer be published and that the Hightstown office would henceforth print the Eastern edition of the Daily Racing Form, but in broadsheet mode with which readers of The Morning Telegraph were familiar.
The union reacted by throwing a picket line around the 52nd Street office, barring passage in and out of the building. Some union members also journeyed to Hightstown and attempted to picket there, but an injunction was obtained and the pickets were removed to a location from which they were no longer effective. Because ground transport of records and certain equipment was barred by the picket line in New York, essential items were taken to the roof of the building and removed by helicopter.
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