Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Sweeping changes are planned for Inquirer
Philadelphia Inquirer | 8-12-02 | Lillian Swanson

Posted on 08/12/2002 1:27:09 PM PDT by Temple Owl

Posted on Mon, Aug. 12, 2002

Lillian Swanson | Sweeping changes are planned for Inquirer

By Lillian Swanson

Inquirer Columnist

This fall, The Inquirer will undergo more change, at a faster clip, than at any time since The Bulletin folded in 1982.

Editor Walker Lundy upended the chessboard, unveiling a new strategy that will assign three dozen more reporters - a 60 percent increase - to cover the Pennsylvania suburbs and South Jersey.

At the same time, the paper will add more space for news across much of the paper, and improve its city neighborhood, business, sports and investigative coverage. Forty journalists will be hired.

In a shift in strategy, some traditional coverage, including national politics, will be thinned. The national and foreign desks will be combined, but more reporters will be dispatched from Philadelphia to cover spot national and foreign stories.

To put more muscle into local newsgathering, Lundy will replace two-year intern reporters in the suburbs with experienced journalists, and furlough some support staff.

"The staff deployment was not aligned with what the mission of the newspaper ought to be," he said at a staff meeting July 30.

From a journalism standpoint, there is much that is fresh in the new direction. For the first time, there will be environmental, poverty and immigration beats in the suburbs. More attention will be paid to suburban sprawl and the paper will nearly double the number of reporters covering suburban education.

Lundy said the plan was intended to boost circulation and "get more feet on the street" to report stories where most of the paper's readers live.

But because the changes will be made within the newsroom's current budget, there was personal pain attached to the plan, troubling many staffers.

Ten part-time editorial assistants, most of them working more than 30 hours a week, will lose their jobs. The Newspaper Guild, a union representing the support staff and journalists, vowed to fight the newsroom's first layoffs in recent memory.

In addition, 23 positions, many of them held by veteran editors in the main newsroom, will be eliminated. They will be redeployed as part of 80 new reporting and editing assignments, most of them in the suburbs.

Here's what readers can expect to see, beginning about Oct. 1:

The daily "B" section will be larger, with up to three more pages of space for news. It will be zoned five ways, based on geography. The paper currently zones the section three ways.

The largest zone, with the most readers, will be made up of Philadelphia and older, adjacent suburbs. It will focus on news of the city, the Main Line, Delaware County and as far north as Abington in Montgomery County. The four other zones are Chester County; Bucks County; Upper Montgomery County, and South Jersey.

Each zoned section will contain a complete metro report. But the farther readers live from the city, the less Philadelphia news they will receive.

High school sports coverage will increase, and will move back into the sports section. Death notices will continue throughout the full run of the paper, while obituaries will continue to be zoned.

The Thursday Neighbors sections in Pennsylvania will be eliminated. The eight Sunday Neighbors will have a very local focus: community voices; a dining out feature; lists of community events; arts and history columns, and real-estate transactions.

Based in the city, reporters will work new beats - including small business; sports business and investigations.

Four neighborhood beats - covering South Philadelphia; North Philadelphia; West Philadelphia and the Northeast - will be added. A fifth neighborhood reporter will continue to cover Center City.

The financing for the plan comes from collapsing the suburban reporting internship program; the layoffs; the redeployment of 23 positions, and a cut in expenses.

The suburban plan was conceived over four months by a committee of 13 editors and reporters picked by Lundy for their suburban experience.

"When we met, it was a true wrangle, a daily fistfight" over different approaches, said Metro editor Matt Golas, who chaired the task force. It was Lundy alone who decided which positions would be cut.

In early September, when samples of the new zoned "B" sections are created, I will invite members of the readers' roundtable to review them and help us fine-tune them.

Meanwhile, get ready for a paper with more room for news and a much richer local report.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: changes; philainquirer
The Inquirer may be the most rabid left-wing daily in the country--even more so thant the NYT, Washington Post or the Boston Globe.

These people obviously have not gotten the message that has been sent to them--their circulation has dropped more than any other so-called main-stream daily. It was up to close to 600,000 in 1982 when the Bulletin closed. They are now claiming something like 350,000 but those figures are fudged. I think they are under 300,000. The Inquirer is dying and it is too late to save it.

1 posted on 08/12/2002 1:27:09 PM PDT by Temple Owl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
They have been getting killed outside the immediate city by the various suburban papers. Even their sister paper, the Daily News, which is heavily aimed at the city market, has more of a clue that not everyone's a leftist. When their most conservative columnist was murdered in a botched street robbery, they added Michelle Malkin's syndicated column. Of course, this new reorganization doesn't mention dealing with their sports pages which have gotten very blah and very PC in recent years.
2 posted on 08/12/2002 1:41:53 PM PDT by LenS
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LenS
God you're right about the Inquirer's sports page. It is so brutal. Can you give me one reason that Claire Smith is a columinist other than the fact that she's black and a woman. She could be the worst, and most boring, sportswriter of all times. Say what you will about the Daily News, I'd put their sports section and columnists up against any in the country.
3 posted on 08/12/2002 1:47:26 PM PDT by frmrda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: LenS
Of course, this new reorganization doesn't mention dealing with their sports pages which have gotten very blah and very PC in recent years.

This is so right on, it's scary. Besides the obvious liberal tilt of the editorial page, I have a hard time getting sports reports from fat women (black or white) about how things could go better in sports, written from a pro-diversity, feel good, stance.
It's SPORTS!!! The game is to beat the hell out of the other guy.
You get better sports coverage in the Metro for Pete's sake.
4 posted on 08/12/2002 1:49:17 PM PDT by dyed_in_the_wool
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
I get called by them several times a year and tell them they couldn't give me that left wing rag for free let alone subscribe
5 posted on 08/12/2002 1:54:55 PM PDT by uncbob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
I delivered The Bulletin back in the early fifties. I have wondered what I'd think of their editorial page if I saw it now . . . I remember it as being sensible--which to me now means, conservative.
6 posted on 08/12/2002 2:08:30 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: frmrda
For many people, sports was a place to escape from the day to day realities and problems. But Ms. Smith's column just drags the editorial page into the Sports section. Nor does it help that she has a very dull writing style and manages to never say anything intriguing (a common enough affliction among reporters). Of course, if the Inquirer fired or reassigned her now it would look as if they were caving in to the morons at WIP who love to beat up on her.
7 posted on 08/12/2002 2:47:24 PM PDT by LenS
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: frmrda
Jack McKinney was one of the all-time great sports writers. He will be a Daily News legend. His obit was in the Daily News today.
8 posted on 08/12/2002 6:08:43 PM PDT by Temple Owl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion
The Bulletin was a conservative newspaper. I wrote for it for 20 years until it closed. I saw it change from a really great newspaper to the liberal rag it became at the end.
9 posted on 08/12/2002 6:12:52 PM PDT by Temple Owl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: LenS
I disagree. While some on WIP are morons (Macnow, Cataldi), the reason they beat up on Claire Smith is because of all the reasons you give. Say what you want about the "morons" who call up, they see that the only reason she has a job is because of her gender and her sex.
10 posted on 08/12/2002 7:19:49 PM PDT by frmrda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
In Philadelphia, almost nobody reads the Inquirer.
11 posted on 08/12/2002 7:22:00 PM PDT by Tribune7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
FYI, we had a newspaper war in Little Rock in the late 80s and early 90s between the very liberal Arkansas Gazette and the more conservative Arkansas Democrat publications.

Only one paper survived - the Democrat which bought out the Gazette. The combined papers are now called the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - and a fine paper it is.

The last editor the rode the liberal Arkansas Gazette into the ground and out of business?

Ta Da!

Walker Lundy.

12 posted on 08/12/2002 8:08:57 PM PDT by spectre
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
The Bulletin was a conservative newspaper. I wrote for it for 20 years
Awesome!
. . . until it closed. I saw it change from a really great newspaper to the liberal rag it became at the end.
Sigh . . . did the liberalism cause or result from the circulation decline?

13 posted on 08/13/2002 4:30:10 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: spectre
The editor was WALKER LUNDY! Amazing!

Just thought I'd bump your comment again for those who missed it! Ha!

14 posted on 08/13/2002 5:03:37 AM PDT by Miss Marple
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: frmrda
Can you give me one reason that Claire Smith is a columinist other than the fact that she's black and a woman.


Um............no.

Her columns are so painful to read, it makes my hair hurt.

And the biggest improvement The Inquirer could make is to simply print on the front page "Place Fish Here. Wrap."

15 posted on 08/13/2002 5:19:22 AM PDT by Fintan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion
It was a combination.The Bulletin (which nearly everybody read) was an evening newspaper, nearly all of which suddenly became obsolete. Then they hired, George Packard a foaming liberal, as executive editor. That added to the skid. When it closed, though, its circulation was still over 500,000 which is probably twice what the Inquirer has today.

The Inquirer, by the way, announced the hiring of Anne Gordon as its new managing editor. Ms. Gordon who had been deputy managing editor for arts and features came highly recommended. She served as communications director for the Colorado Democratic Party during the First Pervert's 1992 presidential campaign.

16 posted on 08/13/2002 9:05:09 AM PDT by Temple Owl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Temple Owl
The Inquirer, by the way, announced the hiring of Anne Gordon as its new managing editor. Ms. Gordon who had been deputy managing editor for arts and features came highly recommended. She served as communications director for the Colorado Democratic Party during the First Pervert's 1992 presidential campaign.
Why not? Journalism is politics . . . has been ever since Jefferson and Hamilton duked it out with their own house organs. The First Amendment can be seen to be almost exclusively about political freedom.

When they proclaim their "objectivity," it's up to us to check the Barbra Streisand meter. 'Course when the FCC tells us that the broadcast journalist is "broadcasting in the public interest," that is over the line . . .


17 posted on 08/13/2002 9:47:43 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: frmrda
Interesting. To me, the morons at WIP are Eskin, Missanelli, Fredericks (by the way, is he on vacation?), and Cherry.

Cataldi's rants always come across as tongue in cheek and not to be taken seriously -- not surprising when he has three co-hosts to rip him. I can handle the others, probably because they tend to be polite most of the time and actually listen to dissent.

But the above group are rude and love to hear themselves pontificate. To be honest, I've never figured out why anyone would call them to disagree with them -- those hosts will simply insult them, talk over them and then hang up. Once 3 PM comes along, I switch stations. Even listening to WFAN and Yankees talk is preferable (and I despise baseball, especially the Yankees).

I also find the rips on Ms. Smith by the WIP hosts to be a bit self-interested since most of them used to work for the Inquirer.

18 posted on 08/14/2002 10:45:11 AM PDT by LenS
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: LenS
Steve Fredericks is on medical leave of some sort. I'm not sure how serious it is.

Eskin, for all his arrogance, has good sources w/ the Eagles and Sixers. He's Andy Reid's butt boy. Howard is basically the house organ for the Eagles. When you hear him criticizing a player (i.e. Trotter) he is getting that from the coaches. But I'll agree he's too arrogant.

Missanelli's all an act to. He's the 45 year old rich white guy trying to be hip, who often says things simply to stir up the pot. I like that though, it's entertaining.

I think the rips at the Inky and Smith are on the mark. Look what happened to that paper when all those people left for WIP. Most said that the Inky editors were so brutal they were happy to leave

19 posted on 08/14/2002 11:00:21 AM PDT by frmrda
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson