Perhaps as early as today, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News will have new owners, and it is expected to be a group of local businessmen who outbid a handful of larger newspaper interests to acquire the two dailies from the McClatchy chain.
The group, led by a local ad and PR man, Brian P. Tierney, will pay northward of $500 million for the two papers, $200 million of their own, and they've promised to invest in the news side of the paper, increasing local coverage in particular, while staying out of editorial decisions.
That should come as a relief to the papers' editors and writers, who have watched their papers decline in recent years because of a succession of cutbacks under Knight-Ridder, their longtime owner, and increasing competition from suburban dailies and other media outlets.
But the prospects of the renowned Inquirer ever returning to glory days of two decades ago, when each year it seemed to win another cluster of awards, would seem remote indeed.
And that's less a reflection of the new owners than on the changing economics of daily newspapers. The business is just that much more competitive, and in this new competitive environment, excellent journalism of the sort practiced under longtime editor Gene Roberts is a luxury that fewer newspapers can afford.
"Back in the days when the Inquirer was winning several Pulitzer Prizes a year, they were also losing scads of circulation," says John Morton, the respected newspaper analyst.
"Very high-quality journalism doesn't seem to drive circulation growth or even retention. I think whoever takes over the paper will probably push even more than Knight-Ridder already does toward extensive local coverage."
Indeed, with newspapers across the country, even some of the best, facing steep circulation slides, improving local coverage is seen as the antidote of choice. Newspaper publishers bemoan as never before the dramatic rise in competition for readers' attention, and not just from the internet. All manner of local publications are springing up to compete with the dailies and more established alternative weeklies to grab away readers.
For decades, the trend had been away from local coverage, both because it was seen as expensive and non-glamorous, even though readers complained. Their message is now getting through.
The specifics of what the new owners-to-be plan for the Inquirer and News are not known, nor have all the parties of the investment group been revealed. Besides Tierney, leaders include Bruce Toll, of Toll Bros. luxury home builders.
Tierney is prominent as a Republican activist who has served as a corporate spokesperson and has also represented Philadelphia's Roman Catholic Archdiocese. He has promised to withdraw from politics in order to maintain the papers' editorial independence.
The Inquirer, the third-oldest surviving paper in the country, saw its best days under Roberts, its editor from 1972 to 1991. But the years since have seen steady decline.
"The Inquirer is not the paper it used to be. It wasn't so long ago that the Philadelphia Inquirer won 17 Pulitzer Prizes in 18 years. The quality has declined," says Chris Harper, journalism professor at Philadelphia's Temple University and a former reporter for the Associated Press, ABC and Newsweek.
"I think a lot of people look at the sale of the newspapers in Philadelphia as something bad," Harper says. "But I think there's a great opportunity here for them to get better. The Philadelphia Inquirer has gone from one of the best newspapers in the country to a mediocre paper, and I think that this [sale] could be good for the paper and good for its readers."
But first the papers' new owners, fresh from the purchase, will be focused on the business side, working to stem outflow of readers while building up advertising revenue. They are not going to be splurging on award-winning reporting teams.
Both Toll and Tierney have said that increasing local coverage would indeed top their agenda, and Toll has promised a bigger local newsroom and efforts to improve news coverage on the two papers' Philly.com web site.
Tierney has pledged to make the Inquirer more fun, while increasing coverage both in the suburbs and in Philadelphia's downtown.
The group won out over a list of suitors that reportedly included a buyout specialist, Toronto-based Onex; New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman; the investment firm Yucaipa, which is owned by supermarket baron Ron Burkle; Avista Capital Partners with former Knight Ridder executive Christopher Harte; MediaNews' Dean Singleton, who recently purchased four ex-Knight-Ridder newspapers from McClatchy.
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation's latest numbers, the papers suffered year-to-year declines in paid daily circulation significantly worse than the industry average.
Last year, the Inquirer lost 5 percent of its daily and Sunday circulation, down to 350,457 and 705,965 copies respectively. And the Daily News declined 9.3 percent to 116,590 copies daily. Some analysts have said a buyer ought to shut down the Daily News altogether.
That could save money, Morton says, but it might not be the best move.
"It may be that in the highly competitive environment in Philadelphia, surrounded by suburban dailies and weeklies, that the Daily News readership is going to be important to the new owner," he says. The investor group has said it is not in their plans to close the paper.
Plus, as Harper points out, cost cutting now may not ensure readership in the future.
"The question is, do you make money by improving the newspaper, or do you make money just by cutting costs. The latter is not a long-term solution," he says. "There is an obligation to the shareholders, but there is also an obligation to readers. … There's a responsibility for the owners of newspapers to provide something more than profits to shareholders."
