Poynter: Philly Inquirer & Daily News to reduce newsroom by 37

Measuring the size of a metropolitan area is tricky. If you look at the population of the core city than cities that have successfully annexed into the suburbs or consolidated into counties such as San Antonio and Jacksonville will look larger than cities in larger metropoitan areas that were not as sucessful at annexing suburbs such as San Francisco.

Probably the best way is to measure the size of the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area as measured by the census bureau. Philedelphia was historically fourth but has been passed by Houston and Dallas in the past 5 years or so.

San Francisco-Oakland is broken out from San Jose by the census folks but has a combined population that is a little larger than Philly's also.

 

Lance, Philly fell from fourth a long time ago. I've always felt that a city should measured from its city limits, not including the counties or neighboring municipalities.

 

Here is the latest black eye to journalism. The Inquirer/Daily News owners threaten to liquidate company, demand union givebacks
http://www.citypaper.net/blogs/nakedcity/186392841.html

 

My brother-in-law lives 25 miles from Philly. The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of the more comforting aspects about going to visit over the holidays (that, plus the chance that one of these times he might say, "Hey, go to the store for a quart of milk and feel free to take the Vette").

 

Would selling the company be such a bad thing for both papers?

 

They knew they had these union contracts when they bought the papers. They knew what they were getting into.

I say, let them sell.

 

The Daily News has been taking on water for too many years to remember. The Inky is no longer the stud it used to be. Papers should've done what the Atlanta Journal and Atlanta Constitution did decades ago. Now, it's too late. The Daily News isn't growing and the potential for growth is shakey. The Inky reaches more people. Always has. Always will.

 

That's easy to say but there are thousands of lives that would be affected by such a sell off. Yes, they knew what they were getting into when they purchased the papers, but they were hoping to find a different solution, I believe. The situation with Hostess showed them a way out of their financial bind.

 

My god, I'm old enough to remember the days of a city with five strong papers. I loved the Bulletin.

 

Shot, there were four strong papers: The Bulletin, The Daily News, The Inquirer and The Journal. The Journal folded in 1981 and the Bulletin, which at one time was the fourth-largest paper in the country, succumbed in1982.

 

Yeah, you're right. The Journal was a trip, too. Daily required reading.

You sure it folded as early as '81? I was sure I had a few years of picking it up daily after college.

 

I'm extremely sure. It ran from 1977 to 1981. Trust me.