Dan's Papers, the First Free Newspaper in America

In 1960, Dan’s Papers published its first edition in Montauk. On its masthead, it listed who worked there. Just me. I did everything. Wrote the stories, sold the ads, made the deliveries. Under that it said “First Free Newspaper in America.”

Thousands of free papers followed, proving it could be a viable model for journalism.    

Interestingly, after I started the free paper in Montauk, I started another free newspaper at the college I was attending. As a result, I stood trial before the school’s student court, which demanded I be expelled. It’s quite a story. And I will get to it shortly.

Anyway, here’s how I came up with the idea of a free newspaper.    

During the preceding 10 years, 30 modern motels were built in Montauk where none had been before. One had a Hawaiian motif, another a Japanese motif. Until then, most of Montauk had been ranch land. Now the community would be competing with Cape Cod for summer tourists. Those in the nearby Village of East Hampton hated what had become of  Montauk. East Hampton people were descendants of English settlers who’d arrived in 1648. The village had windmills, a village green, historic saltbox homes, farmland. They thought Montauk was a catastrophe. But this was before zoning, so nothing could be done about it.

At 6 a.m. every Sunday in prior summers, my dad and I worked in the stockroom of dad’s Montauk drugstore assembling the sections of four New York City newspapers. Montaukers, after church, would then pay us 20 cents for one. It was very little return for a lot of work.   

Also at that time, we sold copies of the East Hampton Star for 10 cents. About 135 copies a week. That didn’t amount to much either.      

Many articles appeared in the Star condemning Montauk prior to 1960. But there was no newspaper to defend Montauk. I loved Montauk, I loved newspapers. It got me thinking.   

Then one day, reading a magazine, I came upon an ad for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In it, a drawing showed a crowd of people walking along a big city sidewalk each reading a newspaper. A caption read “In Philadelphia, Everybody Reads the Inquirer.”

And I thought, “no they don’t.” But if they gave it away free, they could. And then, there it was.

I did the math. I could print stacks of a Montauk newspaper and give them away on counters in the lobbies of every motel and store in Montauk. Maybe 130 lobbies. Flood the community. There was no money in paid circulation. But by selling ads to the restaurants and night spots, I wouldn’t have to ask mom and dad to pay for my college anymore.

I’ll print 5,000, I told shop owners. Fishing news. History. Current events. Humor.

“People will think it’s just a brochure,” one prospect told me.

Nope.   

When I delivered the first edition on July 1, 1960, everybody in Montauk walked along reading it.   

That fall, returning to the University of Rochester for my senior year, I was asked to be the editor of UGH!, the school’s humor magazine. I’d written about it the year before. But there was a problem. Every week, the official college newspaper, the Campus-Times, published a new front page editorial demanding UGH! be shut down. And we hadn’t even published an issue yet.  

At that time, this University was a Christian, white bread, wholesome, God fearing, institution. And the year before, we’d satirized religion, the administration, the ROTC Program and the fraternities. My best friend at that time was Michael O’Donohue (he later became the chief writer for Saturday Night Live.)  We were English Majors, latter day bohemians carrying on as Jonathan Swift did (The Irish Potato Famine) and Mort Sahl (dirty mind, dirty mouth.) We wore black and sat moodily in coffee houses much of the day listening to folk singers, drawing and writing stories.       

Why was the Campus-Times demanding we be shut down? It made no sense. I asked one of their newspaper reporters about it. He told me the newspaper’s office in the student activities building was bursting at the seams. And no place to expand.   

“You guys have that little office next door though,” he said. “And we’ll get it when the administration shuts down the humor magazine.”    

Pathetic.

Michael had dropped out of college. I was on my own. So here’s what I did to get the newspaper off our back. We’d create a fake copy of the Campus-Times, fill it with inaccurate information, and distribute it across campus for free.  

“The administration has voted to go on the tri-semester system,” I wrote. “Summer vacation is cancelled. Students will stay and complete their studies in three years instead of four.”

I also wrote a fake front page editorial. Written by a “junior reporter,” it said several of the higher up Campus-Times editors had been arrested and charged with embezzling funds. We’ll name who they are in the next issue.    

Amazingly, I’d arranged to use all the logos and typefaces of the newspaper. Paid their printer to let us do that. We’d do it at night. The printer thought it hilarious.    

And so, on launch day, the Campus-Times appeared for sale in the three usual locations at noon. But by 1, we’d picked up all their copies and replaced them with fake ones. We also gave out stacks of paper free in fourteen other locations.

In the student center I watched as a co-ed picked up a copy, read the lead story, screamed and then ran with it into the cafeteria. Shortly there was more screaming and food trays were crashing to the floor.   Out the window, we saw secretaries in the administration building streaming out to their cars to head home early. Someone said a fist fight had broken out in the Faculty Dining Room. And all telephone service at the University was down for the count.    

We hoaxers, terrified, raced off campus to a pizza parlor. At 4, our courage back, we returned. And by that time, everybody was laughing at how funny it all was.

Two days later, the school’s student court sent me a summons. I was charged with “misuse of student activity funds.” The money I paid for the printer. They then ruled I be thrown out of school. But the administration thought otherwise. Instead, I was banned from all student activities until graduation. Five months later, I received my diploma.  

After that, it was back to Montauk and further adventures.