Liberal Talk Radio

Yesterday’s interesting column by Times business writer David Carr portended possible bad times for the Philadelphia Inquirer:

[I]n March, The Inquirer was sold by Knight Ridder to the McClatchy Company, which promptly put it back on the block because even though it makes $50 million or so a year, it is not growing at a rate that suits McClatchy’s corporate strategy. So sometime in the next few weeks, McClatchy will sell The Inquirer, a former crown jewel of American journalism that won 17 Pulitzers in 18 years during its heyday in the 1970’s and 1980’s under the editor Eugene L. Roberts Jr.

. . .

Several offers for the paper came in last week, including one from a bidder who talked about cutting newsroom jobs by half. Amanda Bennett, the editor of The Inquirer, said that the staff remained focused on the task at hand. “Our people, despite the uncertainty, are producing a fabulous newspaper,” she said in a phone call.

Today we discover that the paper has been sold to a group of local investors who promise to keep the paper fully intact (whoops, sorry to scare you there!). Local investors, commitment to the community — everything is great, right? Not so fast:

A group of local investors bought The Philadelphia Inquirer and its sister paper, The Daily News, yesterday, promising not to interfere with news-gathering operations, but critics question whether editorial independence will be possible.

The new owners paid the McClatchy Company $562 million for the papers, and said they would keep publishing The Daily News, a tabloid with a declining circulation whose future has periodically been in doubt. And they pledged not to interfere in the running of the newspapers, addressing concerns that the papers might cater to their business interests.

. . .

The group, which calls itself Philadelphia Media Holdings, consists of 10 local investors representing corporate and labor interests as well as entrepreneurs. The buyers, none of whom have owned newspapers before, have said they want the papers to concentrate on local news, particularly business news.

Bruce E. Toll, a home builder who is the biggest investor with a contribution of $25 million, will be chairman of the new company. He owns automobile dealerships and recently sold shares in UbiquiTel, worth more than $30 million. As a businessman in the area and a co-founder of Toll Brothers, the home building company, he has been frequently mentioned in The Inquirer in the last two years.

Other investors, who have also been covered in the papers over the years, include Leslie Brun, chairman of a diversified holding company, the Sarr Group; the Carpenters Pension and Annuity Fund of Philadelphia and Vicinity; Bill Graham, chief executive of a large insurance brokerage firm; and Michael Hagan, chairman and chief executive of NutriSystem.

That’s “Toll Brothers” as in the arch enemy of sustainable neighborhoods and inventor of the hated anti-urban McMansion (profiled here in the Sunday Magazine)! And this may be one instance when local ownership can have a dangerous downside (read the article for the story of Walter Annenberg, the philanthropic media giant who ruled Philadelphia with an iron fist). Sometimes you just can’t win, can you?