Family full of news noses

When your family business is newspapers, being inquisitive is

mandatory.

Dick Reddick and his brothers were raised to question authority

and to always look for the story.

Their father, Ben Reddick, a second-generation Californian, was

intrigued by journalism from a young age. Ben Reddick’s father, John

Reddick, gave his son a camera and taught him the finer points of

photography.

“He saw what good photography could do,” Dick Reddick said. “It

could present a story a lot better than words could ... It was a way

for him to excel and get his message across.”

Ben and Dorothy Reddick raised their three sons in Long Beach and

then Newport Beach. Ben Reddick’s dream all along was to own and

operate his own newspaper.

He bought the first share of the Newport Balboa Press in 1945,

which was a weekly paper published on Thursdays. In 1949, he

purchased the original Newport Beach paper, the Newport Balboa

News-Times, which had been around for more than 40 years.

At that time, the printing process was much slower, as people

would set the paper by hand, using movable type and lithography.

Dick Reddick worked after school at his father’s newspapers. He

learned to set type, but photography was always his forte.

“When I snapped a good photograph, that was a bonus,” Dick Reddick

said. “It gave me a good introduction to the field.”

Ben Reddick didn’t shy away from controversy, his son remembers.

He would pen an editorial about freeway construction, annexation

battles or dredging just to spur discussion.

“They didn’t disguise their politics in those days,” Dick Reddick

said. “He was a registered Democrat for much of his life, and that

didn’t change until after he left Newport. It didn’t bother him

whether someone approved or disapproved.”

For five years, the family produced the News-Times on Monday

afternoons and the Balboa Press on Thursdays. Ben Reddick merged the

two mastheads in 1954, calling it the Newport Harbor News-Press,

which published every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon.

Dick Reddick tracked the media mergers and happenings in his

journal, called “Genealogy of the 4th Estate -- Newport Harbor.”

Another book, “50 Golden Years,” by journalist Sam Meyers, documented

the changing times for the press in the early and middle part of the

20th century.

After selling the Newport Harbor News-Press in 1962, Dick Reddick

joined a group that had purchased a chain of newspapers in Los

Angeles.

The family kept a home in Newport Beach until 1967, when they

moved to Paso Robles. Dick Reddick remained involved in the Paso

Robles Daily Press.

The Newport Harbor News-Press was merged into the Orange Coast

Daily Pilot by the end of 1963.

All three brothers graduated from Newport Harbor High School and

stayed in journalism.

Dick Reddick, the eldest of the three, is a retired editor and

publisher living in Paso Robles. James “Doug” Reddick is a retired

editor living in Utah. Randolph “Randy” Reddick is chairman of the

journalism department at Texas Tech University.

The next generation of Reddicks can “carry a camera, write a

caption correctly and can do publicity,” Dick Reddick reports.

“Most of them share the belief that a free press is essential to a

free republic,” he said.

Ben Reddick died in 1997, and Dorothy in 2004.

“We certainly were a part of Newport Beach history,” Dick Reddick

said.

* THE GOOD OLD DAYS runs Sundays. Do you know of a person, place

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