![]() The Cromie family-mother, four sons and a daughter now own the fastest-growing paper in Canada. A younger brother has joined the firm as secretary of the Sun organization. Cromie, likewise, is “Sam” all over town. Cromie.” He is boss but he is “Don.” Alderman S. Nobody in the 17-floor Sun Tower calls him “Mr. He wears sad die-stitched, light-colored fedoras, tan corduroy suits, brilliant green-andscarlet-flowered ties, loud sweaters and socks. The Cromies’ clothing is as bright and brash as leir newspaper and two years ago the Sun staff >ted Don Cromie the best-dressed man in theīuilding. and mechanical superintenmt of the Sun, is Vancouver’s youngest alderman, e topped the poll in 1946-nosing out men with Gee his years and experience. Today, t 32, Don Cromie looks more like 25. Youth has always been a Cromie stock in trade, ob Cromie died at 49 he w*as never old. The Cromie boys have long nee proved that they are dry behind the ears. When young )on Cromie took over as president and publisher i 1942, at 26, the greying newspaper magnates of tie East dubbed him and his 24-year-old brother am, “the boy publishers.” The name didn’t stick, n those six years the Sun’s circulation has rocketed om 75,000 to 150,000. When he ied in 1936 it had reached 67,000. When young Bob Cromie, a former Vinnipeg bellhop, acquired the sickly, five-year-old fin in 1917 the circulation was 7,000. This lack of inhibition has paid off for the Jromies. Cromie and his sons have directed the lestiny of their newspaper, Vancouverites have ome to accept this sort of thing, just as they have ong since accepted the Sun brand of raucous, racy, iard-hitting, ruggedly independent and highly rreverent journalism. In the 31 years in which t he ate Robert J. Nobody was too surprised last wilder when wo Sun photographers, dressed as bearded -tussians, headlined the floor show for a week in a /ancouver night club. Sun employees, some of them, are an unorthodox rew. But the Sun thought nothing of pasting his picture >n top of the picture of a wounded and bedridden xdiceman and running the result on the front page. ![]() ![]() When the late Gerry McGeer was stricken with appendicitis on the eve of his 1946 mayoralty campaign, he was too sick to see photographers. After mingling intimately with his news sources, he found himself in jail charged with conspiring to steal a safe. Another reporter, assigned to investigate juvenile delinquency, did his job only too well. Angry police demanded the Sun take action. Some time ago a Sun reporter, following Sun routine, swiped a picture of a murdered man from the deceased’s home. It was a futile gesture because the final edition had gone to bed, but on the Sun it is the spirit that counts. A short time ago, a Vancouver Sun photographer was given a cash bonus because he hired a steam roller to block a road and delay a rival Province cameraman. IN CANADIAN newspaper circles, there is a growing suspicion that Vancouver is the last outpost of the rough-and-ready, buccaneering brand of journalism that made Chicago famous in the ’20’s. B.C.’s boy publishers reward reporters for swiping photos and run a scrap-happy paper that even fights with itself
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