The Philadelphia Experiment

A group of local investors has bought The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News (and let's not forget Philly.com) from McClatchy Co., resolving the most eagerly watched chapter of its recent round of selloffs. The company, called Philadelphia Media Holdings L.L.C., comprises many local business people, all of whom presumably will continue to make money from their current gigs. From the Philly.com article:

Local ownership by a group with diversified business and political interests could cast the papers' editorial independence into doubt, some observers have worried.

Count me as "some observer," I guess. It's hard enough to do good journalism when your parent company is a huge media corporation. Imagine the added difficulties of having local interests at stake.

Intelligent noise you can dance to

Oh, good lordy, yes! Philadelphia gets the first TWO shows of Radiohead's newly-announced limited North American tour.

We Are Not Alone

"Our role will be to provide compelling content -- whether it’s coming from our towers, our streams, our multicast channels, or our podcasts."

Sound like something a newspaper industry executive would say? Yeah, but this quote comes from the self-proclaimed Voice of Radio Revolution. It's a comforting thought: as we struggle to find our next viable incarnation, our competition is doing the same thing...

Where are you going, where have you been?

A classic thought, well rendered by Richard Stengel of the National Constitution Center (formerly of Time magazine). He includes the obligatory rumination about the future of newspapers. I do like this bit, though:

"People always cite studies that show that young people get most of their news online. But where do they get it online? Very often, from newspaper Web sites."