I do it all the time :/ No worries.

“I do genuinely believe that this town is gonna get seriously fucked by the greedy/corrupt for five or ten years if the dailies go under, though, which is why I’m so touchy about this stuff. I like Philly!”

I like Philly too. And newspapers. Definitely don’t want to see the dailies go under, but if they can’t sustain themselves, the business model needs re-examining. Hopefully everything will work out *crosses fingers.

I do genuinely believe that this town is gonna get seriously fucked by the greedy/corrupt for five or ten years if the dailies go under, though, which is why I’m so touchy about this stuff. I like Philly! I think people should be less blithe about what our officials will do if they know there’s only hobbyists and underfunded freelancers watching!

But lord knows “should” is a dumb word to be using these days.

Thanks for your comments. Good to hear from a journalist’s perspective.

I should clarify my (rather glib) comments about old/new journalism. Naturally, since I write for on average, five blogs, I will protest to the death the need for a forum (like this), where folks can discuss/debate current events/trends/etc. But clearly, blogs can’t run without “original hard news material.” It’s a symbiotic relationship. At the same time, I still do think the reason why they’re so successful is because on some level, they provide news that major newspapers can miss/don’t cover. Take http://www.sepiamutiny.com, for instance. If you’re a South Asian American looking for news about your community, as I am – there will be times they’re able to do a better job than mainstream newspapers. They pick up the slack. (Which probably has to do with having more diversity in the newsroom, but don’t let me get started on that rant.)

http://www.justdemocracyblog.org/?p=540

Now, alt-weeklies are another story. Sure they have less resources than PHM, but I don’t think Brian Howard and his team at City Paper depend on PMH for “original hard-news reporting.” They definitely do it themselves, as does PW. Perhaps they can’t afford to do it on a daily basis…. but if more people would advertise with them, they could! (Hello Philly Ad Club, advertise with alt-weeklies!)

Also regarding “If you’d showed even the slightest bit of curiosity about this, just to the point of googling, you’d have noticed that Tierney is on the board of Philadelphia Ad Club with Gillespie.”

Excellent point, thanks. I was well aware of that fact and assumed folks knew that. My mistake. I didn’t add that specific fact, but I did point out the close relationship between T. and G. Please take a look at the line in the post above “(Which makes sense considering Tierney is your buddy in the Philly Ad Club’s Advocacy committee.)”

Now on to resources. I think the whole point of my rant was that Philly’s ad agencies should know better than to lay all their eggs in one basket. Asking businesses to invest in Tierney’s holdings simply on the basis that they’re local is ridiculous, as you pointed out. Why invest in philly.com, which does a terrible job of disseminating news, when there are half a dozen websites that could do a better job and attract a greater number of readers? But I think the numbers will speak for themselves. If old journalism were really speaking to their subscribers, circulation wouldn’t have fallen.

I am not saying this to imply that they’re inferior or lazy or something, which I think is one of the big misunderstandings that gets old and new media people all two-hamsters-in-one-cage all the time. I’m just pointing out that they don’t and will not for a while have the resources to send someone to City Council meetings, pay someone who’s not some dumbass 22-year-old (spoken as someone who was recently a dumbass 22-year-old) to work on a story for more than a day, listen to the police scanner at night, check facts, etc.

I mean, goddamn. Mr. Old Journalism. Please. If you’d showed even the slightest bit of curiosity about this, just to the point of googling, you’d have noticed that Tierney is on the board of Philadelphia Ad Club with Gillespie.

http://www.phillyadclub.com/about_officers.php