Stupid Attention-Whoring Filmmakers Get Attention

Brian Tierney’s ongoing quest to make the Inquirer and Daily News more corporate than when Knight-Ridder owned them is right on schedule. The newest evidence is a DVD included in certain copies of the Inquirer on Sunday called Obsession - Radical Islam’s War Against the West.

It was actually in a host of other papers, including the Bucks County Courier Times. It’s common knowledge: Newspapers print any ad if you pay them enough money. But this ad has the added intrigue of offending someone, so it makes the news.

Spokesman Gregory Ross says the group’s intent is strictly to educate Americans about terrorism: “We are not against Muslims. We are only against that 10 to 15 percent that are radical.”

In 2003, The American Conservative wrote that 99 percent of Muslims were moderate. But the magazine warned: “One percent of one billion is a lot.” Now after five years of war in Iraq, we have 10 to 15? Surely this film’s spokesman (spokesman??) is a fair and impartial judge.

If there are radical Muslims, surely there are tubular Muslims, too, right? I bet those guys are awesome.

Pigs Flying Much Closer To Ground

Last last week, Phillymag’s Steve Volk wrote about the financial worries at Philadelphia Media Holdings, the Brian Tierney-captained crew running the Inquirer, Daily News and other related properties.

The 411: Standard & Poor’s reported PMH will have its debt interest rate go up a point in exchange for being allowed to miss a few payments. Its loan was trading in the mid-70s in June and is now in the 40s.

Want more bad news? Sure: Boscov’s, which has filed for bankruptcy, owes the paper nearly a million dollars.

Of course, when the company gets that money, it will immediately be spent on inflatable pigs and cat food, so that Philly.com may construct a whole army of 40-plus pound cats to put on the front page.

Financial Worries Deepen at Philadelphia Media Holdings [Phillymag]
Boscov’s files for bankruptcy; several stores closing immediately [Baltimore Sun via Phawker]

Nutter And Tierney, Sittin’ In A Tree

Word is Michael Nutter just did a photoshoot with Brian Tierney in his office. And he had two undercover security people casing the Daily News newsroom. Maybe he’s going to plant a bug in the office! Oh, that would be awesome.

Hey The Inquirer Is Doing That Pig Thing Again

Inquirer circulation numbers were up slightly; the flying pigs “concept” was “re-launched.” Uh-huh. Look, The Return of the Flying Pigs dot com.

The theme this time is “The Return of the Flying Pigs: The Movie,” and there’s a whole ‘nother four-page supplement. So far, the flying pigs movie trailer has crashed my browser twice.

‘NYT’ Continues To Debase Philadelphia

Okay, not really. But check out this correction in today’s New York Times:

An article in Business Day yesterday reported on a growing trend among large newspapers to accept some circulation declines because of the high expense of attracting and keeping new subscribers. The article was illustrated with a photograph of a delivery truck for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News and a caption that said “Big American newspapers sell about 10 percent fewer copies today than they did in 2000.” The Inquirer’s circulation, like those of other newspapers, has declined from its 2000 levels, but since new owners took over last year, its daily circulation increased almost 7 percent from September 2006 to March 2007, compared with the previous six-month period. The Philadelphia Daily News’ circulation also increased by slightly more than 1 percent in the same period.

Raise your hand if you think Brian Tierney complained to the Times himself. Okay, you can all put them down. But really: Way to run a photo of a newspaper whose circulation was actually up recently, Times! Didn’t you see the “Pigs Fly” supplement?

Corrections 10.02 [NYT]
Archives: Pigs
Thanks, Matt

‘Inquirer’ Building To Be Covered In Bees?

In college, I took a class with an Inquirer editor who said he was a bit iffy on the idea of draping the Inquirer Building in green to celebrate the Eagles’ run toward the Super Bowl. After all, wasn’t this cheerleading, more befitting of NBC 10 or Comcast SportsNet than the city’s paper of record?

I don’t really want to know what he thinks about this. The Inquirer wants to put a giant bee on top of the building. Today, Philadelphia Media Holdings will request a variance from the zoning board to put two 50-by-75 foot signs and a giant inflatable bee on the Inquirer Building to promote DreamWorks’ The Bee Movie.

The Bulletin couldn’t get Brian Tierney or anyone from PMH to comment — but did spend an inordinate amount of time declaring the Inquirer dead and irrelevant or something — and the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blightis attempting to rally the troops to fight the variance request, because a giant inflatable bee in the city’s skyline is not quite what this city needs.

“It’s a cute bee,” SCRUB Executive Director Mary Tracy said. “But if we are going to oppose the graffiti ads like the Sony people did in our poor neighborhoods we have to say they don’t have right to do that.” To be honest, the Sony ads were much cuter.

Anti-Blight Group Declares ‘Inquirer’ Request ‘Un-bee-lievable’ [The Bulletin]
Inky Brass Seeks Zoning To Cover Itself With 300 Lb. Bees [Philebrity]
Related: Eddie Izzard - Covered in Bees

‘Inquirer’ To Sell Coolest Part Of ‘Inquirer’

It’s been rumored for a while, Brian Tierney commented on it it and now it’s official: The Inquirer building is for sale.

The new-ish owners of the paper, the Daily News and related properties, Philadelphia Media Holdings, have partnered with Philly architecture/interior design firm H2L2 to redevelop the building as condos, offices, retail, a hotel, whatever. Tierney says he isn’t sure where the offices of the Inquirer and Daily News will relocate to, but could move to a newly-constructed building behind the Inquirer Building, which is currently a parking lot.

Tierney also said he had planned to sell the building from the beginning in order to raise the $300 mil borrowed to buy the paper. Jones Lang LaSalle, the broker for any deal, says if the paper doesn’t get an asking price it wants, it won’t sell the building. I don’t know about you guys, but I am pumped to eat in a new Roy Rogers on the first floor of 400 N. Broad.

Inquirer Building to be offered for sale [Inquirer]
[Photo by Bradley Maule, Phillyskyline]

Marky Mark Disney Film Inspires Philly Pride

In a largely we’ve-seen-all-of this-before profile of Brian Tierney from Columbia Journalism Review, there’s a little point about Inquirer editor Bill Marimow on his return to Philadelphia. (Yeah, this has been reported before, too, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you! Ahh, such cutting edge references on this blog.)

Marimow, then at National Public Radio, said he had written to Tierney asking to be considered for the job in August after the film Invincible, about an unlikely Philadelphia football hero, had stirred his desire to return to his hometown paper. Even the prospective layoffs—he’d fought similar cuts as editor of the Baltimore Sun, and been fired as a result—didn’t dissuade him. “I knew that for these two newspapers, the Inquirer and the Daily News, to flourish,” Marimow said, “they had to be smaller.”

Yeah, it’s kinda like that scene in Invincible where Vince Papale makes the team! Only if instead of making the squad, he was cut. And the Eagles were only carrying 45 players instead of 60. And Dick Vermeil had quit over a previous head coaching job where he wouldn’t cut the players the owner wanted. And then the Eagles were renamed the Flying Pigs in honor of a 9-7 season.

Brian Tierney’s Grand Experiment [CJR]
May 4: ‘Inquirer’ Uses Font Size Usually Reserved For Terrorist Attacks To Tell Us Circulation Is Up

Money & Me: ‘Inquirer’ To Publish Grogan Book

John Grogan, the ex-Inquirer columnist and Marley & Me author, has a new book coming out in addition to his two new Marley books for kids. The only problem — for him, at least — is the book was done without him knowing anything about it. Even worse, it’s a column collection. One can only imagine the “AOL disks are annoying” column from last year will make the cut.

As awful as a collection of John Grogan’s columns sounds — for the record, Marley & Me was infinitely better than any one of his columns — it actually gets worse: The Inquirer agreed to the collection, from Vanguard Press, and then sent a letter to the author letting him know this book was coming out.

Grogan, in response, has his agent fire off a letter to the publishing community (or whatever) and saying he wouldn’t be doing anything to promote the book.

“I was totally blindsided by it,” Grogan said. “It just seems like common courtesy, and basic professional behavior, to at least give the writer a phone call to say, ‘We’re thinking of doing this.’” Grogan also believes the book, which features an image of a puppy on the cover, is shamefully trying to piggyback on the success of his smash bestseller. “This has nothing to do with wanting to publish my columns and everything to do with [Vanguard and the Inquirer] getting a piece of this very large audience I have with Marley & Me,” said Grogan

Gee, you think, John? Brian Tierney sent Grogan a letter he received a few days after the deal was struck, where he offered a share of the profits for helping to promote the book. Grogan said the deal wouldn’t allow him to have any say over the content and packaging. Tierney, though, says he’d still like Grogan to help out with the book (though that’s not going to happen now) and that this book isn’t all that important anyway.

Nonetheless, the newspaper executive, recently rumored to be interested in buying Dow Jones, has bigger worries than Grogan’s feelings. “This is a $500 million company… and while we’re excited about this book, it’s not as if it’s going to be a significant revenue stream.”

Hey, you never know: People like doggies. Aww, puppies!

Grogan Dogs Vanguard’s Book of His Columns [Publishers Weekly]
Thanks, Joe

Flying Pigs: A Special ‘WSJ’ Section

Noted yacht-in-the-Caribbean owning Brian Tierney, the owner of the Inquirer and Daily News, isn’t content with just the major print media and most popular website in Philadelphia.

No, Tierney is also hoping to turn Philadelphia Media Holdings into a powerhouse by purchasing the freaking Wall Street Journal. The WSJ would come if Tierney could find backers to buy Dow Jones, the subject of a recent takeover attempt by Rupert Murdoch.

News Corp.’s bid for Dow Jones was $5 billion, which Tierney said wasn’t excessive. Well, you get the freaking Wall Street Journal, so I suppose it’s not so much. Of course, the bid for the Philly papers was just over $500 million, so, ah, if Tierney manages to buy Dow Jones it’d be a real reason to do a special section about pigs flying.

Inquirer owner has interest in Dow Jones [Inquirer]
May 4: ‘Inquirer’ Uses Font Size Usually Reserved For Terrorist Attacks To Tell Us Circulation Is Up