Pigs Can't Read

Due to production difficulties, your Inquirer or Daily News may not have been delivered today. If so, your paper will be delivered with tomorrow’s paper. We apologize for the inconvenience.

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The above statement was posted on the Inquirer's website this afternoon. Must have been those flying pigs getting in the way of the printing presses.

As Phawker explained, in Q: When Will The Inquirer Pull Out Of Its Circulation Decline? A: When Pigs Fly Over 400 North Broad, there were pigs on Broad Street last Friday:

No you are not high — well, maybe you are but that doesn’t explain why pigs were flying over the Inquirer last night. You see, Inky Big Mahoff Brian P. Tierney commissioned the airborne pork ‘toon as part of a full frontal nyah-nyah-nyah over the paper’s recently posted circulation gain. The haters are still standing on tiptoe trying to get a peek at the End of Journalism As We Know It, but the Inky’s daily circulation was up 0.6 percent, or about 2,136 copies, over the last year.

Obviously the increase in circulation was good (even if surprising) news for the Inquirer. Mr. PR, Brian Tierney, did what he knows best. He did an all-out press, flaunting the news, a la the pigs flying over the building. Following the flying pigs on Broad, were 2 days of Pig Ads in the Inquirer over the week-end, see Philadelphia Will Do. In the end, this must have caused a hangover, since production problems caused the slight circulation drop noted above -- no papers delivered to ??? many subscribers on Monday. And Tierney, having been raised Catholic, should know about the sin of pride. Gets you every time. Irony, thy name is Brian. What goes up may come down. And down it did.

I have been complaining about the Inky for some time now, see, e.g., Inquire No More. Despite claims to the contrary, after the purchase of the Inky and Daily News by the Brian Tierney group, there has been a continued cutback in staff, along with a new conservative voice on the opinion page. Other changes have recently been introduced as well.

For example, Citizen Bank is now "sponsoring" a business column in the paper. As noted by Phawker, Tossing Bricks In A Glass House, this move necessitated an email from an Inky News Editor, who explained that the new Citizen Bank sponsored business column is getting some bad press. The upshot of the email was: Despite how it looks, it's really not that bad. Of course, this missive wasn't addressed to the readers, but the staff. Not good.

The reaction of the press has also been less than enamoured by the idea. See, Houston Chronicle Philadelphia Inquirer has left a key component out of its equation and The Nation, This Space for Sale. As the Nation said:

The venerable old paper is about to start running a new column called PhillyInc., which will be sponsored by Citizens Bank. Got that? An editorial column sponsored by a bank and festooned with the bank's logo and ads. William K. Marimow, the Inquirer's editor, admits that, "instinctively, as a reporter, I would have recoiled at the idea." But he has "come to terms with it," the New York Times reports, and promises that the editorial staff will maintain "complete, independent control" of the column's content.

Even before this, the Inquirer made news after its decision to start placing Page One Ads, see Philly Papers to Sell Page One Ads. Then there was the new news digest on the back page of the Sports Section, see The Reader's News Digest, which is not to be confused with the blurbs of the News in the front section.

Let me summarize. The paper has become Ad Heaven. Squeezed between the ads are a number of AP articles (including blurbs), with a few NY Times and Washington Post pieces. There are still a few articles penned by people identified as "Inquirer reporters" on the front page and in the Local/Regional News sections of the paper. More ads, less news. I also believe that the grade of paper being used has deteriorated, since there is sometimes a yellow cast to the paper -- that the-cat-got-it-first look -- if we don't bring it inside quick enough.

I wouldn't mind the preponderance of ads if the quality of the news accompanying the ads hadn't declined. I understand that the paper needs to increase revenue to survive. However, I don't want to read AP articles when I'm reading the paper. I see those on every on-line site that carries news. What makes me stay with the Inky, rather than just the NYTimes, is the local/regional/state reporting, along with another view of national news. But the latter is completely missing and the former is shrinking.

And yet, despite all this, we're told that circulation has increased? I'd love to get a good look at those numbers to see the true story. Statistics lie as much as Republicans (and Brian Tierney is definitely Republican).

(Photo via Phawker and see video at When Pigs Fly)

You should never try and teach a pig to read for two reasons. First, it's impossible; and secondly, it annoys the hell out of the pig.
~~ Will Rogers

Tags: Journalism, News and Media, Philadelphia, Philly, Quote of the Day