Rick Edmonds
Feb. 20, 2012
7:23 am
“In Philadelphia, reporters wonder whether major layoffs announced last fall don’t presage the folding of the Philadelphia Daily News which, unlike the Inquirer, has been losing money.”
So wrote Matt Cooper in a 1987 story about Knight Ridder. Matter of fact, … Read more
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Feb. 17, 2012
7:46 pm
Inquirer | Philadelphia City Paper |
Business Insider
Journalists at the Philadelphia papers are speaking out against
editorial interference they say has "compromised and censored" coverage of the company's
likely sale to a group of owners led by former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.
Rendell told the Inquirer, "You'd think this was the first time some political people owned a newspaper ... People are shocked that we would take over a newspaper and maybe have editorial input."
Nearly 300 editorial employees of the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com --
about 80 percent of the newsroom -- are publicly opposing the interference and ask that the new owners commit to editorial independence. That contingent includes two former managing editors of the papers and nine Pulitzer Prize winners. And now dozens of former staffers have signed on to the statement as well, including four former top editors of the Inquirer and the author of “Black Hawk Down.”
Three journalists are credited with circulating the statement: Craig McCoy, Joseph Tanfani and
Wendy Ruderman, who spoke with Philadelphia City Paper about the impetus for it.
“Initially there was a lot of fear and people were very timid. And then when the New York Times thing hit, it was just a free-for-all,” says Wendy Ruderman, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist at the Daily News and petition organizer. “Larry Platt essentially called Osberg a liar, and nothing happened to Larry.”
The Philly journalists' full statement is below.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Feb. 17, 2012
8:52 am
Philadelphia Inquirer |
Poynter
In a meeting with their newsrooms Thursday, editors of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com told journalists that
their rivalry would soon turn to cooperation. As the separate, competitive operations merge into one shared physical space, they will also begin to coordinate coverage so there is less duplication of efforts, though the same stories may appear in both publications, reports Mike Armstrong.
"Some writers, such as columnists, editorial writers, and investigative-reporting teams, would remain separate, enabling the papers to retain their distinctive voices, [Inquirer Editor Stan] Wischnowski said. In addition, staffing would be adjusted to provide 24-hour, seven-day-a-week breaking-news coverage.
Under the plan, some elements of sports coverage, arts and other features stories, city and suburban reporting, and various editing functions would be coordinated and shared, Wischnowski said.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Feb. 10, 2012
2:52 pm
New Yorker
When Ed Rendell was governor of Pennsylvania in 2008, he spent some time traveling around the country with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. At the time, Rendell pitched Bloomberg on buying Philadelphia's daily newspapers, which were then
burdened with debt and
soon to declare bankruptcy. Ben McGrath recounts:
“We discussed a few things, and I tried to convince him to come down and buy the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News,” Rendell went on. “I said to him, ‘Mayor, only you can save the newspaper business in this country.’ And of course his staff, they wanted him to buy the New York Times.”
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Julie Moos
Feb. 9, 2012
9:56 pm
Associated Press | Inquirer |
Daily News
Raymond Perelman,
who bid two years ago to purchase the Philadelphia daily newspapers, says he was "excluded" from the sale process currently under way, according to information obtained by the Associated Press, which reports:
Perelman urged the company, Philadelphia Media Network, to conduct a fair and open sale of its assets. He said in a letter to the company's board he was "dismayed" to learn he and others were excluded from the process.
He sent the letter Wednesday, a day after a journalists' union, the Newspaper Guild, met with managers of the newspapers' owner to complain that two stories this week about another potential bidder, developer Bart Blatstein, had been censored.
"Nothing is more important to me than continuing the strong tradition of journalistic integrity in our local papers and making sure the Inquirer and Daily News are preserved for the people for generations to come," Perelman said in his letter, which The Associated Press obtained Thursday.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Steve Myers
Feb. 9, 2012
9:13 am
WHYY's Newsworks
Dave Davies writes that he has more evidence -- a photo of the Inquirer's budget for the Tuesday paper -- that the management of Philadelphia Media Network has quashed news stories about a potential buyer of the company. The Inquirer planned to write about Bart Blatstein's group after it issued a press release Monday, but "the story was spiked," according to Davies. On Tuesday, spokesman
Mark Block asked that a Daily News blog post about Blatstein's group be removed and replaced with the company's statement that it wasn't negotiating with the buyers. A Daily News story for Wednesday's paper was also spiked, Davies writes.
What's really amazing about all this is that it's hard to imagine how the owners of Philadelphia Media Network would be harmed by some simple, straight-ahead reporting on the Blatstein group. (more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Steve Myers
Feb. 8, 2012
5:41 am
A Philadelphia Daily News reporter's blog post about a potential buyer for his paper was removed from the company's news site Tuesday because it was misleading, according to the spokesman who requested it be taken down.
The original story --
a portion of which was published on JimRomenesko.com -- said that a group of investors calling itself Philly Homegrown Media wanted to buy some or all of Philadelphia Media Network, which owns the Daily News, the Inquirer and Philly.com. Within a few hours, that story had been replaced by a short statement that simply said
Philadelphia Media wasn't involved in any discussions with that group.
The move prompted questions like this one from
WHYY's Dave Davies: "Are the owners of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News muzzling their own journalists to protect their financial interests?"
Mark Block, the company's vice president for external relations, said by phone Tuesday night that he asked the website to replace the blog post, which he saw as little more than a rewritten
press release from the group. In its place, he provided the company's statement.
"In this scenario, I think I had a responsibility to look at that and say, 'Wait, let's get that right,' " Block told me. "I don't think I was stepping on any toes."
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Steve Myers
Feb. 3, 2012
2:20 pm
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
Jim Romenesko
Sep. 13, 2011
9:44 am
Philly.com |
TechCrunch |
Adweek.com
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com parent is selling 5,000
Arnova 10 G2 tablet computers for as little as $99 to readers who agree to buy two-year subscriptions to three apps developed for the Android tablet. (The tablet is $129 for one-year subscribers.) After a beta-test phase with the first 5,000 tablets, Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) hopes to launch the tablet more widely on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving. "Our goal is to be the most innovative company in the industry, and today’s announcement is a major step in that direction," says PMN publisher Gregory Osberg. ||
Jeff Sonderman: Why subsidizing tablets for newspaper subscribers makes sense.
(more...)
- Tools:
- Permalink
-
