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The Spectacle Blog
I usually write about matters Middle Eastern, but today, I’d like to draw your attention a little closer to home.
A consortium of investors is on the verge of buying the failing Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News. The struggling papers have experienced a generation of decline — battered hard by backsliding readership in an internet age and a flight of revenue dollars gone digital. The prescription is standard: streamline through merger and announce the inevitable layoffs. Nothing left but the crying. Just the latest nail in the coffin for print media. Right?
Nope. It’s much worse than that.
The investment group in question is helmed by Edward G. Rendell, former district attorney and mayor of Philadelphia, governor of Pennsylvania and general chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). In his column for the New York Times today, longtime Philadelphian and former Inky reporter Buzz Bissinger informs us that “the Guv” is backed by Lewis R. Katz and George E. Norcross III – two Democratic kingpins and local business magnates who bankroll the party bosses and political machines that run Philly and South Jersey.
Listen, it’s no secret that regional newspapers are no longer reliable financial investments…so what interest could this powerful troupe of savvy Democratic investors have in salvaging a lead balloon like the Philly press?
Well, their own political and business interests, of course. Reports are surfacing of politically charged coverage of competing bids being silenced and backroom threats to not sour the sale in progress.
If Rendell and Co. are already swinging substantial weight around — before purchasing the papers – imagine the control they’ll wield when they take command of the most influential news conglomerate between New York and Washington…in one of the most important swing states on the electoral map…months before the 2012 elections.
As Bissinger puts it:
If the sale goes through, Philadelphia will become the first major city in the country to actually cease to have a real daily newspaper. There will still be print and online products, sure, but those products will be owned by a group of power-hungry politicians and politically connected businessmen who, far from respecting independent journalism, despise it.
As a native Philadelphian, it pains me to watch my city – this cradle of liberty – fall victim to the worst sort of propaganda and plutocracy. So much for the free press in the City of Brotherly Love.
View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Reid Smith
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/02/16/rip-free-press-in-philadelphia
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ncatty| 2.16.12 @ 3:33PM
Well, there is always the Courier-Post.
Tom| 2.16.12 @ 4:39PM
Philadelphia will find itself in the same situation as Moslem countries where the media must be in conformity with sharia law.
albert constantine jr| 2.16.12 @ 5:11PM
Wait, help me out. Currently the Inquirer and Daily News aren't left wing publications?
Reid Smith| 2.16.12 @ 5:33PM
When they were owned by by Brian Tierney (formerly of Tierney Communication, the Reagan administration, and GWB's 2000 Presidential campaign) they certainly weren't utilized as bullhorns of the left.
albert constantine jr| 2.16.12 @ 5:35PM
Pre-Knight Ridder, nicht wahr?
Reid Smith| 2.16.12 @ 5:57PM
Think it went Annenberg > Knight Ridder > McClatchy > Tierney > creditors...but I could be mistaken.
albert constantine jr| 2.16.12 @ 7:04PM
I seem to recall Knight Ridder putting both on the sales block in or around 2008-2010, but i could be off, as well. Once upon a time, the Wilmington press was the Morning News and the Evening Journal, both owned by Christiana Secutities, a du Pont family holding group. The papers were moderately conservative in their editorial philosophy. Since the late 80s, when Gannett picked it up, it has been anything but conservative (though to be fair, in 2000, they endorsed Burriss over Minner for Governor, but it is thought they did that primarily because they didn't wish to be the largest newspaper in a state where the Governor had a GED instead of a high school diploma).
Wayne| 2.16.12 @ 5:26PM
Free Press died in Philly decades ago! Several years ago they published a long editorial pointing out the corruption, illegalities, and mistakes of the Democratic mayor and concluded with an endorsement for another term
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 2.16.12 @ 5:59PM
Leftists buying a newspaper will not change much.
Floyd Looney| 2.16.12 @ 6:29PM
lol. I did not read your post before I commented.
Floyd Looney| 2.16.12 @ 6:28PM
Leftwingers buy a leftwing paper and nothing has to be changed.
Occam's Tool| 2.16.12 @ 7:02PM
I wasn't aware that Philadelphia had a Republican leaning newspaper. Let them lose money. No one reads them anyway.
Bob K.| 2.16.12 @ 7:39PM
They will go broke too.
Unless the federal government gives them a stimulus package.
Too liberal to fail!
Bob Grant| 2.16.12 @ 8:15PM
Let 'em buy it. It'll be just more fish wrapping for Fishtown!!
Highsider| 2.16.12 @ 8:31PM
Welcome to hell, Ried. The major west coast papers have been this way for years and no one had to take them over to accomplish it. It's just what's happening on the left, You never noticed?
Reid Smith| 2.16.12 @ 8:50PM
No, it's impossible not to notice.
I just hadn't witnessed anything quite so flagrant as an ex-mayor/governor/DNC chair buying the leading newspaper in the 5th largest city in the US.
albert constantine jr.| 2.16.12 @ 9:29PM
His wife is a judge on the 3rd ircuit Court of Appeals and he used to have a sports show on Comcast. What's left for him to try to take over?
Highsider| 2.17.12 @ 11:57AM
I predict we'll be seeing more of this as more of the nation's major dailies teeter on the brink of financial ruin. They are virtually all house organs of the left wing, proggressive parade that flushed journalistic integrity so long ago that they no longer remember the term. The public remembers it though and that's why so many of them are losing readership so fast that they are resorting to smaller formats for the paltry savings they can realise in the cost of smaller newsprint.
They tell themselves that it's all because of competition from the online news sources, ignoring the fact that the reason for online's popularity is that people don't trust the print media for fair unbiased reporting any more.
I think that we'll find it very interesting over the next few years, to see the contortions the left goes through, in an effort to save what they've already killed.
Fire Andy Reid| 2.16.12 @ 9:34PM
Oh come on. The Inky and Daily News have been Democrat toilet bowls forever. No one on the right takes them seriously. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Mary| 2.16.12 @ 9:37PM
http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-new-blacklist
Crassus| 2.16.12 @ 10:08PM
Maybe this new paper will hire Bill Conlin as its editor.
Geoff| 2.17.12 @ 11:03AM
This is isn't just about political slant. Philadelphia is a horribly corrupt place. Norcross in South Jersey has a ton of problems too (read the Soprano State detailing NJ corruption).
Bissinger is talking about reporting issues about local corruption, and he is very much correct to be concerned.
jcp370| 2.18.12 @ 5:49PM
The Pinky has been a left-wing rag as far back as I can remember. The Daily News even has a big Media Matter guy, Will Bunch, on staff.
Buzz Bizzinger is living in a nostalgic '30s film about a mythical newspaper doesn't exist. Let Rendell & Co. take over, they won't even need to change the hacks.