The Daily Inquirer

From the Philadelphia Encyclopedia of Stuff That Didn't Happen (Yet)

by Joel Tannenbaum

The year was 2025. Rupert Murdoch, 94 and kept alive mostly with organs transplanted from the bodies of redundant copy editors from News Corp-owned papers, was incredulous as to why Philadelphia needed two separate daily newspapers. "You bloody drongos," Murdoch told his new employees, "I want these papers merged by the end of the week." And so was born The Daily Inquirer.

The working strategy was to retain the News' tabloid format and the Inquirer's more muted editorial style and international focus, although the latter tended now to concentrate upon popular Australian sports such cricket, beach cricket and dwarf-tossing. Murdoch was not content with the merger — his employees were under constant pressure to eliminate content. As Murdoch approached his hundredth birthday, his directives became increasingly eccentric. First City Council coverage was cut. Then movie listings. Then international news. Then op-ed. By the time of the Murdoch centennial celebrations, all that was left of America's oldest continuous daily newspaper was a 3-by-5 index card with a single word printed on it. Frequently the word was simply a day of the week. Sometimes it was a color, or a number. Sometimes, to emphasize News Corp's commitment to the local communities it serviced, the word was particularly Philadelphian, like "YO" or "WATER ICE." ...

Read the rest at citypaper.net/future

What's all this? Every week, Joel Tannenbaum flips through the mysterious Philadelphia Encyclopedia of Stuff that Didn't Happen (Yet). To read the above entry in full — and all previous entries — kindly click on citypaper.net/future.