Publisher Is Hard to Read

In tow, usually several paces behind her, shuffled David C. Copley, her shy, overweight son. The young newspaper executive often wore his wraparound sunglasses. Only rarely did he speak. And sporadic headlines in the family's own newspaper -- from drunk driving convictions to an early heart attack, to his absorption with the smallest design details in his La Jolla home -- reinforced the notion that the younger Copley might make less than a stalwart heir to one of America's last family-owned newspaper empires.

Distant murmurs about the future of the house of Copley have been a San Diego staple for years. But the chatter has roared to the fore with two watershed events -- the death of Helen Copley a little more than a year ago and David Copley's heart transplant this summer.

Now journalists inside the Union-Tribune and leaders in America's seventh-largest city wonder: Is Copley up to the task? Or will he sell, ending a 100-year-old newspaper dynasty?

At 53, Copley is a billionaire, one of San Diego's biggest philanthropists, a widely traveled patron of the arts. He is also an enigma. He rarely speaks in public and is mostly known for his occasional appearances on the society pages.

"The assumption always had been that when Helen died, he would sell," said Peter Kaye, once the No. 2 editor at the Union-Tribune. "His interest seemed to be in theater, in art, in his parties and in fast cars."

Neil Morgan, a columnist fired last year after more than half a century with the newspaper, added: "Rumor is still very strong that they're three months away from making a move of some kind." The veteran newsman, a friend to two generations of the newspaper family, said those theories had Copley retiring to long sojourns on the giant yacht he is having built in Seattle.

But those closest to the publishing scion said similar, and similarly inaccurate, predictions were made about his mother 32 years ago.

"People have always projected their own narratives on the family," said Harold W. "Hal" Fuson Jr., chief legal officer for the Copley Press. "What is it that makes them think David Copley is so hot to get out of this business, a business that he has grown up in and that has provided him a more than adequate living?"