Barry Bingham, Jr.

Barry Bingham Jr., "former editor and publisher of The Louisville Courier-Journal and The Louisville Times, whose corrosive feud with two sisters led to the 1986 sale of the newspapers in a high drama that ended the family stewardship of an acclaimed journalistic enterprise, died yesterday [2006] in Louisville, Ky. He was 72. His daughter, Mary C. Bingham, said he died of respiratory failure after a long bout with Hodgkin's disease.

"The sale of the two newspapers to the Gannett chain was reluctantly ordered by Barry Bingham Sr., the 80-year-old patriarch of the family, as a last resort to end a bitter struggle between Barry Jr. and his sisters, Sallie Bingham and Eleanor Bingham Miller, over control of the family properties. A television station as well as AM and FM radio stations in Louisville and a printing company were also sold, to other buyers...

"In 1971, Barry Bingham Jr., a 38-year-old Harvard-educated former marine, succeeded his father, Barry Sr., as editor and publisher of both the morning Courier-Journal and the afternoon Times and as the operating head of WHAS-TV, a CBS affiliate; the radio outlets; and Standard Gravure, the printing company. He and his sisters and parents were the principal stockholders of the companies, although Barry Sr. remained as chairman of them and, along with his wife, Mary, controlled 95 percent of the voting stock.

"Over the next 15 years, despite circulation losses and rising costs in a stagnant economy, Barry Jr. presided over essentially healthy companies and burnished The Courier-Journal's reputation for high journalistic and ethical standards."

Related Books

 * Susan E. Tifft and Alex S. Jones, "The Patriarch: The Rise and Fall of the Bingham Dynasty,"
 * Marie Brenner, "House of Dreams,"
 * Sallie Bingham, "Passion and Prejudice: A Family Memoir,"