Philly newspaper staffers will launch online paper if they strike

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The largest union at Philadelphia's two biggest daily newspapers is planning to launch an online newspaper to compete with the company Web site if workers go on strike after midnight on Thursday.

Employees from The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News would contribute local content that will be edited and posted online, said Stu Bykofsky, a Daily News columnist and spokesman for their union, The Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia.

``It's to provide news and information for the community so they won't be deprived,'' he said.

In competing with Philly.com, the union's PhilaPapers.com would sell ads and function like an online news site, covering major stories as well as the strike itself, said Tom Ferrick, Jr., chief steward at the Inquirer newsroom and a columnist.

About 200 people are expected to staff the site, which is to include news, politics, business, sports and entertainment sections. While there would not be any direct union advocacy, the site would have links to other sites that tell the union's viewpoint, Ferrick said.

Jay Devine, spokesman for owner Philadelphia Media Holdings, declined to comment on the union plan but said talks are ``making good progress and we're hopeful.''

The issues dividing the two sides include the owners' proposal to take over the pension plan and do away with seniority status for employees.

Bykofsky said about 700 of the more than 900 Guild members at the two papers have filled out strike eligibility forms, which would qualify them for benefits during work stoppage.

On Thursday morning, the two papers' nine other unions plan to meet to decide whether they would support a strike, said Joseph Lyons, president of the Council of Newspaper Unions.

Strikers would picket the papers' headquarters on Broad Street in downtown Philadelphia, editorial offices in Cherry Hill, N.J., and a printing plant in Conshohocken, Pa. If workers go on strike, it will be the papers' first walkout since a 1985 strike that lasted more than six weeks.

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=13500

Looks Good on Paper

The hiring of former investigative reporter Bill Marimow as Inquirer editor has offered some hope at 400 N. Broad St. But is it enough to buoy spirits about the paper's future?

by Steve Volk

Inside the building, 1:30 took on a kind of magical importance—like midnight on New Year's Eve, only more significant.

Brian Tierney, CEO and publisher of Philadelphia Media Holdings (PMH), owner of the Inquirer and Daily News, had emailed a memo the morning of Nov. 8 announcing a meeting in the Inquirer newsroom. Some thought the meeting would address pending layoffs. Others thought he might talk about the difficult ongoing contract negotiations between management and the union representing newsroom staffers.

But most believed the meeting would address the future of Amanda Bennett, the Inquirer's editor for the last three years. Her status has been the subject of rumors for the last few weeks, and one name kept surfacing as her replacement—Bill Marimow, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and a 59-year-old lion of the newspaper's storied past.

“I've heard he's been seen in the building,” Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick said at the time.

But Ferrick's source had only heard about the sighting. And as the morning wore on, though Marimow sightings multiplied, no one had actually seen him.

“It's like he's a ghost,” said Ferrick, who assessed the prospect that Marimow might become the new Inquirer editor somewhat pessimistically. “I don't know why he'd come to preside over the dissolution of this newsroom.”

After all, the public story of Marimow was that of a journalist so committed to his craft that he'd been fired as editor of The Baltimore Sun because he opposed corporate-ordered layoffs. The dismissal ended his 34-year run in the newspaper business, including a 21-year stint from 1972 to 1993 with the Inquirer.

From the Sun he moved on to National Public Radio, where disputes with his boss earned him a face-saving retreat to the position of ombudsman, mediating between journalists and the NPR audience.

The Inquirer staff was also in need of some good news, given that the goodwill arising from the Tierney group's purchase of the paper five months earlier had already devolved into talk of layoffs, a possible strike and budget cuts.

So when 1:30 p.m. finally arrived on that rainy afternoon, the tension level peaked.

Tierney entered the newsroom. Bennett was with him. And there was the ghost: Bill Marimow—the first real journalistic star to take the editorial helm at the Inquirer in at least five years.

He was greeted with applause, but the uncertainty in the room was impossible to escape.

“It's great that he's here,” one longtime news staffer reported afterward. “And I guess I give him credit for being honest. He said there were going to be staffing cuts—and that there was going to be pain.”

Pain was evident in the eyes of one young reporter, a small, dark-haired young woman who blinked in the rain outside after the announcement and stared at the traffic rolling down Broad Street.

“It's exciting that he's here,” said Inquirer reporter Gaiutra Bahadur. “But because of the layoffs, I don't know if I'll ever even work with him. I don't know if I'll be here.”

Captain on deck: Bill Marimow addressed his staff directly after his hiring was announced, telling them to expect some pain.
Most staffers at the Inquirer contacted for this story declined to comment for the record. They're afraid for their jobs. And they have lots of company around the country.

Earlier this month Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet was canned for opposing the expected elimination of 100 newsroom positions. The St. Paul Pioneer Press has announced 40 layoffs. The Arizona Republic recently dismissed 31. The San Diego Union-Tribune is offering early retirement to employees with 30 or more years on the job. The Akron Beacon Journal cut 85 positions this fall. And the Sun Times news group, which runs more than 100 Chicago-area newspapers, recently sent out a memo advising employees the company will provide “the main meat dish and soft beverages” for holiday lunches, heralding journalism's new status as a potluck industry.

Average daily newspaper circulation in this country fell 2.8 percent on weekdays and 3.4 percent on Sundays over the latest six-month reporting period, according to recent industry figures.

Online readership, meanwhile, is up 24 percent over the same time period. But no one has yet figured out how to generate enough advertising dollars on the Web to make up for revenue shortfalls, rendering the Internet both a driving force in getting journalism read and a killer choking off the dollars that supports it.

In response to all the Internet action, the Gannett newspaper chain recently unveiled its “newsroom of the future,” which includes a concept called “crowdsourcing,” directly involving readers in investigative projects. The Washington Post has announced plans for a massive internal restructuring of its newsroom to better reflect the importance of its website. And The New York Times' David Carr, a former alternative weekly newspaper editor and one of the best journalists working today, says he'll carry a video camera around to cover the Oscars for his blog.

Here in Philadelphia the talk is less of the future and more of the deeply perilous present. Former Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. owner Knight Ridder had made a sacrificial cow of the Daily News, hacking and slashing its editorial staff from 270 to 109 over the last 20 years. For the new owners, the Inquirer is the prime target.

Daily circulation at the paper fell 7.6 percent over the latest six-month reporting period. Sunday circulation has fallen 4.5 percent. And Tierney, who made himself publisher shortly after taking over, recently issued a chilling two-page memo reporting that revenue had dropped more than 10 percent from the previous September, largely due to an industry-wide decline in national advertising. His Philadelphia Media Holdings group, which took out more than $350 million in loans to finance the deal, will have trouble making its debt payments without deep cost-cutting.

Tierney followed up his memo by asking newsroom managers to prepare for a worst-case scenario of up to 150 layoffs, more than a third of the paper's 410 editorial positions. Tierney has also said that more concessions from the newspaper union will mean fewer layoffs. Because this particular saber is being rattled during intense contract negotiations with the Newspaper Guild, Inquirer columnist Tom Ferrick issued an internal bulletin calling the move a scare tactic.

Management is asking for a series of concessions from the union—abolishing seniority, eliminating the current pension system and virtually scrapping sick pay. (For more on the negotiations see “Up-to-the-Minute Strike News,” p. 32.) But Tierney's memo claimed some layoffs are “unavoidable,” and the fear at 400 N. Broad is palpable. Which is why—in purely symbolic terms—the specter of an old journalistic warhorse like Bill Marimow may be just as important as the guy himself.

The man: Marimow's old colleagues routinely describe him as among the most dogged reporters they ever knew.
The Inquirer is haunted by its past. Through the '70s and '80s it was a model newspaper. Editor Gene Roberts, a former New York Times reporter who'd earned his stripes covering the civil rights movement, built an aggressive, truth-telling international journalistic machine—an iconic newspaper that embraced the post-Watergate emphasis on balls-out journalism.

The effort paid off in prestige and prizes—a whopping 17 Pulitzers between 1975 and Roberts' departure in 1990.

That kind of success yields a lot of ghosts: Rod Nordland, Jonathan Neumann, Donald Barlett and James Steele, Richard Ben Cramer. These and lots of other journalists won Pulitzers and other prestigious prizes during Roberts' run.

Among the names that still inspire reverence from those halcyon days is Bill Marimow, who won Pulitzers in 1978 and 1985 for his reporting on police abuse.

The first prize, which he shared with Neumann, was for a series of stories the pair wrote on police interrogation tactics. Those stories resulted in a federal criminal investigation and the reversal of a homicide conviction. The second prize was for stories Marimow wrote about the city's K-9 squad. For that, Marimow put one of his sources through a lie-detector test.

Both series represented journalism at its best—transparent and explosive, sparking investigations and better police practices. Which is why his return carries a promise of what might be, while also begging a lot of questions. Unfortunately, Marimow isn't making himself available to answer them.

In a series of short phone and email exchanges, Marimow gradually declined to be interviewed for this story. He said he'd already talked to The New York Times, Editor & Publisher and The Washington Post. “I prefer to let my journalism speak for me,” he said, while promising to interview with PW at some unspecified future time.

Marimow might be happier practicing journalism than talking to local reporters, but his refusal to speak is comparable to a new university president or even a police commissioner clamming up in the town he intends to serve.

Consider that his new boss is a public relations pro, and the new editor's silence grows oddly loud.

But even as the Inquirer wrestles with perhaps the most significant challenge in its history, it still demonstrates the capacity to produce top-shelf journalism.

Reporters Ken Dilanian and John Sullivan just authored a series uncovering a pattern of ineffectiveness at the Department of Human Services.

They found at least 20 children had died of abuse or neglect after coming to the city's attention. In the wake of their reports Mayor Street forced out the DHS commissioner and a deputy.

It's the kind of journalism Marimow once practiced, and that's still lurking inside the cubicles in the Inquirer's newsroom. That former Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett is departing—by “mutual agreement,” according to accounts—after publishing such admirable work raises questions too.

But she's not returning calls either.

Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney, who bravely wrote about her past experience with Tierney's roughhouse brand of public relations in a column shortly after he bought the newspaper, lays out two of the questions that still need answering.

“I think hiring Bill is a brilliant move strategically,” she says. “It's great PR. He's well-liked and well-respected. But why him? Why now?”

“Why him?” is answered by Marimow's resume, which would put him in the running for most any top editing job in the country.

The question “Why now?” is perhaps answered by the rare positive headlines his hiring has generated for management during a time of labor strife.

Under construction: Before the Inquirer can build its new identity, workers need a new labor contract and a specific number the company intends to lay off.
Five months ago in a story in PW, Jonathan Neumann, Bill Marimow's old reporting partner, called Brian Tierney “an enemy of the First Amendment and an enemy of the Constitution.”

Tierney responded to Neumann's barb with his customary skill, deflecting it with humor (“Does this mean he won't be a subscriber?”) and pointed indignation. (“I am a lawyer, and I took an oath to uphold the Constitution, which I love. What he says is totally false.”)

Neumann didn't return calls this time requesting comment on Marimow's hiring, but it doesn't take an investigative reporter to confirm that while Marimow busied himself speaking truth to power, Tierney spoke for power.

A Republican in a decidedly Democratic city, Tierney represented Sam Katz in his second failed run for mayor. For years he also spoke for the right side of the aisle on local news and public affairs shows.

Tierney earned his pulpit the hard way. His series of advertising firms, which boasted such clients as PECO Energy, Verizon and McDonald's, are often credited with preserving the advertising community here in Philadelphia at a time when big clients were heading for New York.

In media circles, particularly at the Inquirer, Tierney was known as a bruising advocate.

Reporters investigating Tierney clients often received his aggressive phone calls. They were pressed for face-to-face meetings, and Tierney often went over their heads, phoning editors to complain about the tactics of individual reporters. Tierney, a Catholic, played the game with such zeal that his advocacy seemed to go beyond business, especially when it came to his defense of the archdiocese.

After buying the Inquirer and Daily News, Tierney handled questions about fears he'd meddle with the news by issuing a pledge signed by all the investors. The pledge prohibited interference in editorial coverage, and to his credit, not a single reporter or editor has come forward to complain that a story has been spun.

Marimow's hiring may test that detente.

The new editor “still has sources, who I'd bet are gonna be more willing to give information to the Inquirer now that he's there,” says former Inquirer editor Robert Rosenthal. “And it may cause issues for the new ownership. They'll need to understand the paper's credibility has to come before everything else.”

Tierney is probably frustrated by how much public attention has been focused on the company's contentious contract negotiations. And on himself.

“The pledge” surfaced in numerous stories covering his group's surprising purchase of the newspapers. His 7 percent stake in the Trump casino proposal is something his editorial page editor calls “particularly sensitive.” And when the Newspaper Guild recorded a radio commercial publicizing their take on stalled contract negotiations, they went right for the bossman's kneecaps—titling the spot “Brian Tierney Changes His Tune.”

As CEO and now publisher, he roared into 400 N. Broad St. talking a big game. Local ownership was going to be better for the papers than the stewardship of a large publicly traded corporation. He was going to spend $5 million marketing the papers and $16 to $20 million on new printing-press technology.

Now, just five months later, layoffs are a certainty. Tierney spokesperson Jay Devine has said the new company's pockets aren't as deep as Knight Ridder's were. And the promised investments are forgotten for now, until the new company gets its fiscal house in order.

“In all my years here it's never been so ugly,” says longtime Inquirer reporter George Anastasia. “The morale. And I've been through strikes. So there's the question. If there's a whole lot of layoffs and we can't do ambitious journalism, so what if Bill Marimow's here? What's the fucking point?”

The negotiators: The entire team couldn't be present, but the Newspaper Guild's dealmakers include Henry Holcomb (clockwise from bottom left), Dan Gross, Carol Rothman, Howard Gensler, Frank Santafede, Bill Ross, Scott Hamrick, Diane Mastrull and Cindy Burton.
Gar Joseph, a 25-year veteran of the Daily News, shows off the empty rows of desks with a wry smile. “This is where we were talking about putting in a bocce ball court,” he says.

From where he stands, rows of empty desks fan out in front of him like gravestones. Given the Daily News' history as Knight Ridder's favorite cost-cutting lab, it's perhaps not surprising that the DN has produced the city's most opinionated media critic.

Will Bunch, a quintessentially cantankerous journalist, has documented his paper's travails on his blog Attytood, and harnessed the medium's power to build communities of people interested in a narrowly tailored set of subjects. The large number of responses his posts receive allows for a kind of give-and-take the traditional letters to the editor can't match.

What Bunch says about recent events at the Inquirer is disarmingly simple.

“There should've been somebody else announced with [Marimow],” he says. “Let's call him ‘Joe Google,' or ‘Joe Yahoo.' Somebody who'd have real power, who'd work with both newspapers to say, ‘Let's really use the Internet and adapt everything we're doing to this new medium because that's our future.' Marimow could've been the guy to make sure we adapt to the new technology in the right way, to keep our values and our mission as journalists intact.”

But before the Inquirer and Daily News can confront the future, they first have to face the present.

The current pension benefit plan, which calls for the company to kick an additional 6 percent of each employee's salary into a retirement fund, is a relic from another time in American business.

But reform comes with pain. According to the Guild's figures, management's current proposal to freeze the pension plan and replace it with a 401(k) with no employer-matching funds will cost employees dearly.

“Employees earning $75,000 would have to save an additional 14 percent of their salary over 10 years to make up for what they'll lose,” says Jeff Brown, an Inquirer business columnist who's been helping the union study the impact of management's pension proposals. “These changes would have a devastating effect on someone in their 50s who's looking at retiring in 10 years.”

Tierney has told PW he won't speak about the contract negotiations between management and the newsrooms. He says it's a promise he made to the union.

But a Fortune article published earlier this month quotes Tierney on the expensive work rules he inherited from Knight Ridder: “[Tierney] was flummoxed upon learning that Knight Ridder didn't send its union-represented salespeople to meet clients in Chicago because they had to be paid time and a half. Tierney says this was his response: ‘Guys, how bad is it if I ask you to leave your house for a night, fly out to Chicago, stay at the Hyatt, go to Morton's, have steak with a client, a bottle of wine, maybe take them out to listen to some jazz on Rush Street, come back the next morning, get a big commission, and put it in your expenses? Is that punishing?'”

If Tierney is frustrated with the unions representing the Inquirer and Daily News, at least he's got sympathizers.

“It's not a property I would've taken as a gift,” says John Cribb, principal broker of Cribb and Associates, the oldest newspaper brokerage in the United States. “Because I'm not sure how you deal with the union. That's the killer. That's why that's not an attractive company. There's nothing wrong with that marketplace or market area. It has its ups and downs, and major papers are having a tough time with national advertising. But the cost that's out of control is the unions.”

Tierney's claim that he didn't see the sudden steep decline in national advertising coming wasn't a rookie mistake. “I've been in this business for 30 years, and I didn't see it coming,” Media News Group CEO Dean Singleton told Fortune.

The union's protection of the current seniority system also undermines the enterprise. Protecting longtime employees is a separate issue from defending good journalism. And insisting the company lay off its most recent hires first could sorely compromise the paper's quality going forward, particularly at the Inquirer. Ken Dilanian, Mario Cattabiani, Michael Currie Schaffer, Marcia Gelbart, for instance, are all valuable staff and potential layoff targets.

To think Marimow can have any impact on the current situation would be naive. And even old Inquirer hands seem well aware that their new captain is a lot smaller than the waves towering above the ship.

“I think Bill Marimow is a great hire,” says Inquirer photographer Eric Mencher, a 30-year veteran. “But what if revenue drops in December? Or January? What then?”

Marimow has seen a variation of this film before. His years at The Baltimore Sun—1993 to 2004—featured their fair share of labor strife. And while his firing there was portrayed as that of a principled editor succumbing to cost-conscious bean counters, that may well be an oversimplification.

Just as The Washington Post reported that he didn't get along with his boss at NPR, The Baltimore Sun's publisher said at the time of Marimow's firing that he was being dismissed for reasons of “personality, fit, style.”

And Marimow isn't talking like a man seeking to save his entire editorial staff today. “I have come to believe that a newspaper has to tailor its mission to the resources that are available,” Marimow told Editor & Publisher in one of those interviews he granted right before he stopped granting interviews.

These words may sound uniquely uninspiring coming from a man of his editorial stature, but they're ruthlessly practical. And Marimow, a former investigative reporter, has probably always been a realist—well versed in what this world can do.

A top editor is always management—not labor. And Marimow played hard for management. In 1996 he got into an argument with then-Baltimore Sun columnist Mike Littwin, a union activist who disagreed with him over a system of merit-only pay increases.

Littwin told Marimow he didn't consider the dispute “personal.”

According to an account in American Journalism Review, Marimow retrieved a copy of The Godfather from his bookshelf and quoted Michael Corleone speaking to his most trusted adviser: “Tom, don't let everyone kid you. It's all personal.”

Later, in June 2003, Marimow wrote a memo still available on the Poynter Institute's website, urging Baltimore Sun employees to accept management's contract offer.

“Earlier this month,” he wrote, “I read a story in The Wall Street Journal, describing how Circuit City had terminated its highest-paid sales personnel—20 percent of the company's nationwide sales force—and replaced them with new, lower paid workers.”

It might come a surprise to Marimow's new employees at the Inquirer to see how easily he equated their positions with retail sales.

“There were a lot of people who still resented him for that when he left,” says Baltimore Sun reporter Michael Hill. “But for Bill loyalty to the paper is everything. Anything that gets in the way of that is anathema to him. The idea that we could strike and potentially hurt the paper was something he couldn't accept.”

Former Inquirer managing editor Jim Naughton says that during a 1985 Inquirer strike Marimow kept on reporting about a big investigative hearing, delivering a story the evening the impasse ended.

Says Naughton, “That's just how much he cared.”

It's a lovely story, from another time and another place, when caring was enough.

Steve Volk (svolk@philadelphiaweekly.com) has written frequently about issues surrounding ownership and management of the city's two big daily newspapers.

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

During his relatively short time at National Public Radio, Bill Marimow played an important role in a controversy that captivated the art world in late 2004.

Longtime NPR contributor David D'arcy ran afoul of the Museum of Modern Art with a Dec. 27 story documenting the long-running dispute over ownership of Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally. The painting had been stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family in 1939, and its rightful ownership has been a matter of dispute ever since MOMA displayed it in 1997.

In an affidavit D'arcy says that in January of last year he received a phone call from NPR managing editor Barbara Rehm, who announced on speakerphone that Marimow was also taking part in the call.

“Marimow told me that he doubted whether the All Things Considered report on the Schiele Case was ‘newsworthy,' that I had made [MOMA benefactor and former chairman] Ronald Lauder look bad, that I made ‘MOMA's trustees look like bad Jews,' and that I ‘had violated every rule of journalism,' reads the affidavit.”

D'arcy was accused of failing to seek comment from MOMA. (He says they declined comment, and said as much in his broadcast report. He also sent PW an email that appears to be from MOMA's communications department, declining comment.) He was also accused of interviewing one source on a separate subject, then incorporating the material into the Schiele story. (D'arcy says this is also “absolutely false,” and the material was broadcast in the appropriate context.)

D'arcy was subsequently terminated from his ongoing freelance arrangement. The editor who oversaw the report faced a one-day suspension. NPR also issued a correction.

In the weeks that followed, public discourse came down on D'arcy's side: 60 Minutes' Morley Safer, the Los Angeles Times, Toronto's Globe and Mail, the Arts Journal, Artnet News, The Architect's Newspaper and The Forward, along with numerous bloggers, all weighed in against NPR's actions.

Art-world heavyweights, including former Museum director Tom Freudenheim, and lawyer and art historian Lucille Roussin, also backed up his reporting.

Slate's Mickey Kaus got to the point particularly quickly, posting NPR transcripts online to prove D'arcy received poor treatment. “National Public Radio should be highly embarrassed that it apparently ‘terminated' a reporter [for a story] that was seemingly accurate and at least as fair as anything you hear on NPR,” wrote Kaus.

D'arcy subsequently sued both NPR and MOMA, and though he has since withdrawn his suit against NPR, he's going forward against the museum. “I didn't know Bill Marimow,” says D'arcy, who never named Marimow among the defendants. “But when he was talking to me I felt like I was being grilled by Sen. Arlen Specter in some kind of kangaroo court. I hope the good Bill Marimow edits The Philadelphia Inquirer.” (S.V.)

WHAT ABOUT THE PLEDGE?

“The editorial function of the business shall at all times remain independent of the ownership and control of the Company, and no Member shall attempt to influence or interfere with the editorial policies or decisions of the publisher.”

—The Pledge, signed by the investors of Philadelphia Media Holdings

When former publisher Joe Natoli resigned in August, Brian Tierney named himself publisher.

What this has done to the pledge is obvious: It's nonsense as written, prohibiting Tierney from interfering with his own editorial policies and decisions.

Word also arrived that Inquirer editorial page chief Chris Satullo now reports directly to Tierney.

“That's how it works at most major papers that wear long pants,” Satullo wrote PW about the arrangement. “I have felt since I joined the editorial board in 1994 that our structure was flawed. We solemnly assure readers who worry about such things that news and opinion are kept rigorously separate in our daily operations. Yet in the old structure, the two were combined in the person of the executive editor.”

Tierney had vowed not to involve himself in any of the papers' editorial content, telling PW the pledge covered both the news section and the editorial pages. But Satullo clearly prefers the new arrangement, while acknowledging difficult issues. Tierney's 7 percent stake in the Trump casino proposal is a case in point.

“The casino thing is particularly sensitive,” wrote Satullo in his email to PW, “both because of the nature of the issue and the fact that the involvement is financial, not civic.”

Satullo wrote this email to PW before the editorial board rated the five casino proposals on Nov. 26. The introduction to those rankings includes a thick paragraph explaining Tierney's involvement and that he never saw the copy before it ran, then goes on to position the Trump proposal second, which is a pretty big deal given that the gaming board will ultimately select two sites.

Satullo also emailed to point out that the Inquirer had published an editorial critical of the Thomas Jefferson Hospital board's decision to sell Gross Clinic, a classic Thomas Eakins' painting. (Tierney is on the Jefferson board.)

“I alerted him to our intention,” writes Satullo, “as is my responsibility. His response: ‘Thanks for the heads up. Do what you think you should.' In other words: He lived up to the pledge completely.”

The pledge's status on the news side of the operation is harder to figure. “The idea that [Tierney] won't interfere with himself isn't worth very much,” says former Inquirer editor Gene Roberts.

“I do think whether the owners might change the pledge to reflect Brian's status as the publisher is a valid question,” says Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney.

Is there talk at Philadelphia Media Holdings of changing the pledge? “I don't know,” says Philadelphia Media Holdings chairman Bruce Toll. “I hadn't thought about it.”

Neither Brian Tierney nor his spokesperson Jay Devine responded to requests for comment. (S.V.)

UP-TO-THE-MINUTE STRIKE NEWS

Come midnight Thursday, anything could happen—including a strike.

While another extension of the current contract could be negotiated, or perhaps the two sides could reach resolution on a deal, as of Monday afternoon the Newspaper Guild and Philadelphia Media Holdings seemed set on a course for conflict.

The Newspaper Guild representing Inquirer and Daily News employees received 3,000 brand-new picket signs last week. They also drew up plans to march in front of the company's entrances and exits at 400 N. Broad St., their suburban printing plant and their Cherry Hill office in the event of a strike.

An ad also ran on careerbuilder.com seeking temporary editorial employees for $17 to $20 an hour. An operator reached at the listed phone number said they were looking for employees willing to cross an East Coast picket line for a strike that might begin in December. Neither CEO/publisher Brian Tierney nor spokesperson Jay Devine responded to requests for comment.

Reports from the negotiations offer little encouragement.

The most substantive issues—including pension funding, sick time and seniority—remain unresolved.

Philadelphia Media Holdings would like to require staff to miss four days of work—and pay—before benefits kick in at all.

The pension fund also remains an issue. Philadelphia Media Holdings wants to freeze the current pension plan, switching employees to a 401(k) program with no company matching funds. The proposal amounts to a pay cut of at least 6 percent—along with drastically reduced pension checks.

Philadelphia Media Holdings acquired the papers, along with the website philly.com, for $515 million, while assuming $47 million in pension liabilities. They took out $350 million in loans to make it happen. Tierney has since said in a two-page memo to employees the paper must make $40 million in debt payments, yet is projected to generate just $50 million in net revenue—leaving him with little room for error.

Further complicating matters, Newspaper Guild president Henry Holcomb has said the company wants complete control of the seven-person pension board, leaving all future decisions about the $187 million fund to management.

“That's entirely unacceptable,” says Guild spokesperson Stu Bykofsky. “We're not budging.”

As the two sides approach the zero hour, and the threat of a strike intensifies, all the possibilities seem more extreme—from the sight of state police escorting replacement workers across picket lines to the chance that Philadelphia Media Holdings might seize a strike as an opportunity to bust the newspaper union, which represents about 1,000 of the company's 2,600 employees.

“[Philadelphia Media Holdings] did hire a law firm that specializes in tactics that diminish the strength of unions,” says the Newspaper Guild's Holcomb. “But the fact that both sides are preparing for the possibility of a work stoppage isn't something I'd typify as anything other than prudent.” (S.V.)

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