Also this issue:

Biker Wars
The holidays were a festive time for mobsters of all stripes.
-Brendan McGarvey

Soundbites
-Deborah Bolling

Supreme Courting
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

January 16-22, 2003

on media

Walker in Suburbia

Inky Editor Lundy sees a bright future in the hinterlands.

by Deborah Bolling

As the new year gets under way, Inky Editor Walker Lundy says he's planning a series of meetings at the bureaus to let both veteran and nascent staffers know that, after a year of tumult and upheaval, 2003 is looking good.

"A lot of last year was taken up with coming to grips with what our journalistic strategy ought to be, staff changes and the hiring of 40 or so new reporters," says Lundy, who joined the Inquirer at the end of 2001, from the St. Paul Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn. "This year we can focus on journalism."

The strategy, Lundy says, includes three basic goals: to create memorable journalism; to be surprising to the readers; and to provide information that will be viewed as useful.

"Part of our job is to help people hold up their part of democracy," he says. "But we also have to provide them with information that benefits their pocketbooks, as well as let them know how to better enjoy their weekends."

Last July, Lundy rolled out an ambitious plan, placing emphasis on the much-overlooked suburban readership. Now, after sorting through over 700 resumés from around the country, Lundy says he's very pleased with the new hires.

"I'm thrilled by the quality and quantity of the new staff," he says. "The diversity not only includes race and gender, but also the size of the papers they came from, their experiences and their varied backgrounds."

Managing Editor Anne Gordon agrees.

"We made a decision to hire those with the most talent and highest level of experience we could find," Gordon says. "I think we've been pretty clear about our goals [regarding more extensive and comprehensive suburban coverage]. Now, we have the staff and the resources in place and we're ready to outthink and out-perform the competition."

For years, the Inky has had a dubious relationship with the Philadelphia suburbs. Until recently, a corps of correspondents covered the hinterlands. Now, as scores of Philadelphians have moved just beyond the city limits, Inky management has assigned higher importance to that readership by employing more seasoned reporters to cover those beats. Though the correspondent program has been discontinued, with only a handful of those reporters still on board, there has always been a separate unit whose primary focus was the suburbs: the Suburban Writers and Photographers (SWP). And while all of the 40-plus new reporters have been hired into the main unit at a higher pay rate, most of them are stationed in the 'burbs alongside the SWP staff.

Gordon says that although the emphasis on suburban coverage is considered paramount, no changes -- including pay raises or the possibility of placement in other sections of the paper -- are on the horizon for the SWP unit, who now number less than 30. As a result, morale in that unit may be on the decline.

"There is no plan to integrate them into the main unit," Gordon says. "The original plan remains the same. The SWP writers and photographers will continue to work only in the Neighbors section."

Bob Williams, a 15-year veteran SWP photographer, whose suburban colleagues have helped garner the Pulitzers and other awards that once brought this newspaper journalistic distinction, says that even though his unit acknowledges their contractual terms have certain limits, they still do equal jobs for lesser pay.

"At one time, Lundy told us that if we all worked real hard, maybe we'd get hired," Williams says, wryly. "We pointed out to him at the time that we were already employees. But maybe he feels we're not as good as the main staff. My own take was that he thought the suburban unit wasn't really part of the main Inquirer. Lundy may just be the victim of poor information."

Lundy seems undaunted by any criticism.

"Right now, the Inquirer is a very exciting place to be," he says, summarizing the outcome of the year's first enterprise news meeting. "When this paper is turned on, it's the best newspaper in America. Buy us tomorrow and see."