October 12–19, 1995

publisher's clearinghouse

What Were You Thinking?

What Were You Thinking?

A couple of media-related letters with gratuitous advice to people who ought to know better.

Dear Robert Hall:

What's this about spiking the Daily News? I know the overlords at Knight-Ridder are breathing down your neck to pump up the profits, that 8 percent is considered pretty poor in the big media bizness. But the Daily News could save your tail, justifying the $300 million white elephant you've got in Conshohocken.

Lissen up.

This is Philadelphia, not Washington or New York or Los Angeles. If you're looking to capture the suburban market, you're not going to do it by pumping up the Inquirer, making it prettier and blander, more stuck-up and even duller.

Somehow, you've got it in your head that Philadelphia suburbanites will suddenly drop their subscriptions to the Times, the Wall Street Journal and their local dailies to read a low-rent version of Philadelphia magazine. They won't — and besides, the size of the readership for life-style ephemera is not going to support the high-priced operation you've got going.

You want profit margins? Check out what Montgomery County Newspapers is doing. Kicking butt on the Main Line. Better yet, look at the Delaware County Daily Times. Now there's a tabloid with a handsome profit margin, probably twice the 12 percent that Tony Ridder needs to finance the mess he's got in Detroit. The secret: down and dirty good local reporting, with a lot of serious sports coverage.

Sound familiar? Sure. You've got a well-written, feisty and good-looking tabloid, which, if you took off its shackles, could do some serious business in the suburbs. Sure, the demographics are not as sexy as the ones you're dreaming about for the Inky, but have you visited the suburbs lately? Do you really think that Upper Darby is like Scarsdale? I know that the think-tank folks are calling for "Regionalism," but have you bothered to check with the people in the region?

C'mon, pal, wake up and smell the scrapple.

Dear Ed Rendell:

What were you thinking when you commented to Mary Frangipanni in this paper last week that the media ought to have a "Discipline Committee"? "A group," as you put it, "from the media that are selected by the media, who could discipline writers and editors and say, OK, we are punching your ticket for a year, you can't practice your craft for a year."

Jeez, since when do journalists need a a "ticket" to practice? Do you think the state (or anyone else) ought to be in the business of licensing us? What country in the free world has "approved" newspaper reporters? What a dumb idea.

The only remedy for bad speech is more speech. Imposing a bureau of standards on what reporters report would only trivialize news with more press-release journalism.

Think about it.

And, by the way, the next time you see Bob Hall, tell him that real diversity comes from a lot of voices. That throttling the Daily News would only create more citizen apathy. It's darn hard trying to lead underinformed people who don't give a damn.