Inquire No More

Brian Tierney, the new owner of that Republican Rag, formerly known as the Philadelphia Inquirer, is the subject of an in-depth article in Philadelphia Magazine, Press Lord 2.0, by Jason Fagone.

After reading this piece, it confirms my original view of the man. See The Good News and Bad News. He's an arrogant, obnoxious ad man who is ultimately only interested in pursuing his agenda of making money and spreading the truth -- the Republican version, that is. Tierney has no interest in journalism; no interest in making the Inquirer/Daily News better papers. He's merely interested in the product -- the spin is all, the facts -- not so much. Sound like any other Republicans you know?

Here's a window into the world of Tierney:

Tierney is just getting started. For the next two hours, he roams all over the 12th floor like a lost gymnast looking for his next apparatus — pointing to things he’s stuck on the walls, new honor boxes, cooler ads, any hard evidence of big changes. He shows me a table lined with dozens of local newspapers Tierney sees as his competition, papers like the Courier-Post and the Burlington County Times; Tierney flips through them every week to check out the ads and see “what’s going on in their communities.” He shows me a prototype of the “Inquirer Express,” a one-page capsule version of the day’s top Inky stories, boiled down to short paragraphs in the style of USA Today and “sponsored” with a large ad from Commerce Bank. ("It’s just a terrific win-win-win.")

* * * *

Tierney is a pitchman. That’s his culture. He sells stuff. Always other people’s stuff. Hoagies for Wawa, credit cards for Advanta, the blue-chip products of blue-chip companies like Aramark and Exelon, political candidates for the GOP. Which isn’t to say he doesn’t believe in some of the things he sells. He does. As a Catholic, he went to war with the Inky in the ‘90s over its investigation of Cardinal Bevilacqua’s spending priorities, then reached out to Catholic voters on behalf of George W. Bush in 2000. Later he handled PR for the Camden diocese and its law firm while they fought off those pesky allegations of child molestation that kept appearing under the bylines of those (totally biased!) journalists at the Inky. So he believes in the Church. Bush, too. In 2003, when Tierney chaired Sam Katz’s mayoral campaign, he resisted attempts to broaden his candidate’s appeal in a Democratic city by having Katz criticize Bush. At one early strategy meeting, a leading GOP consultant told Katz he should try to become Philly’s Mike Bloomberg, perhaps by coming out against the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Says the consultant, Chris Mottola, “I thought Brian was going to have a stroke. ‘You can’t do that! You can’t do that! The White House will never stand for that.’” Katz lost. Tierney says, “I’m post-political now,” though it’s clear that certain folks see him as the Great Right Hope; at a business breakfast in October, a man approached Tierney and said he thought the Inky should feature more “good news” that was “fair and balanced.” Tierney said, “I’ve got 1,400 letters just like yours. And five on the other side.”

* * * *

In the New World, where so many more outlets are selling content than ever before, on more electronic devices than ever before, the most precious commodity is mere exposure. Eyeballs. Insofar as journalists have value, it’s because they represent brands that can be leveraged across multiple platforms: TV, the Internet, books, screenplays.

Tierney is certainly not alone in this view of the future of the media, but that doesn't make it right. The paper is already showing the effects of this. We now have less original reporting, more AP and other wire service stories, the new The Reader's News Digest, and worst of all -- more conservative voices on the Editorial page. But that's his real agenda:

The bolder and newer the thinking, the better the story. So I’m guessing you won’t hear much more from Tierney about journalism as a vital public service. That was a useful story a year ago, when Tierney talked like a civic lion. These days, he wants to be a corporate turnaround artist like his friend Mike Hagan of NutriSystem — the kind of guy who’s celebrated in business-press features for Reviving The Brand. The idea that a newspaper owes something to its community beyond profits clearly isn’t what excites Tierney anymore, and maybe it never did. What excites him is the possibility that this cobwebby enterprise of American metro journalism — this business that belongs to the era of Charles Foster Kane — could be made to rhyme with the values and business climate of 2007, and that Brian P. Tierney could be the guy to make it happen. Forget the civic experiment. Philadelphia Media Holdings is a mere business experiment now.

In line with this, while catching up with my reading, I saw, in After loss, Santorum trying on a lot of new hats, that it looks like the Rick Santorum addition to the Inky (see Ricky@Inky?) opinion page is a done-deal. At this point, I guess it doesn't matter, I've already given up reading the editorial page of the Inquirer altogether. Of course, I'd write to voice my complaints about the Santorum column, but as the Philly Mag article makes clear -- Tierney's attitude would be: Frankly, dear Reader, I don't give a damn. You don't like the paper, don't read it.

I also believe that it shows the new direction of the paper. Brendan of Brendan Calling, writing at FireDogLake, YAWWWNNN noted that Philly voted against Santorum by 84/16% margin. This doesn't surprise me, because I don't think Tierney is interested in catering to the Philadelphia market. Tierney has decided to market his "brand" to the surrounding Philadelphia region -- the Philly/Jersey suburbs, who are more Republican, more interested in glitz than substance. So quality journalism isn't a criteria for success when that's your target audience.

I think that the only good thing I can say about the Inky these days is the news that Dan Rubin's (formerly of Blinq blog) new metro column is a keeper, see Phawker, Don’t Blinq, You’ll Miss It.

Tags: Philadelphia, Philly, News & Media