A few things bug me about this [Philly Mag] article: 1. Of course Joey‘s gonna be nice to a reporter. When there’s something in it for him, Sweeney‘s charm can be downright dazzling. Of course, the flipside to this, is we don’t know what the piece looked like after x amount of edits, and Philly Mag doesn’t want to alienate a possible new demographic (which I don’t think exists in this town in any real large numbers: the indie-yuppie…I still think it’s The Khakis buying all those gazillion dollar condos). Besides, maybe Sweeney’s not important or familiar enough to most […]

Monday, October 30, 2006 — We are pleased to announce that on Saturday, October 28th we reached a tentative agreement on “non-economic” issues with our Paperhandlers union. We appreciate all the hard work on both sides of the table that allowed us to reach this agreement. Negotiations also took place over the weekend with the Newspaper Guild. While the Guild provided PN with a counter-proposal on Advertising issues, we remain far apart. PN has negotiations scheduled with our unions over the next two days, and we remain optimistic that we will reach agreements with all but the Guild close to the […]

Alright, we’re finally catching up with the alt-weeklies’ breathless pace of publication and we’re actually doing this in almost ‘real time.’ Despite that bit of unpleasantness with the City Paper earlier this week, and our tenuous grasp on gainful employment with PW, we vow to remain objective. And this week, it’s a toss-up: Both papers have fairly killer covers, so hats off to all involved. PW rocks the Yankee Hotel vertigo shot for Steve Volk’s I-spent-a-night-there-last-week story on the creepy ol’ Parker. CP goes with a gorgeously retro cartoon recreation of that classic image of car show babia majora showing […]

At approximately 6:45 p.m. Thursday, the rank and file of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia voted almost unanimously to authorize an Inquirer/Daily News strike. Just to be clear, this does not mean a work stoppage has commenced, it merely means the Guild membership has given the negotiators what most inside 400 North Broad agree would be “the nuclear option.” The Guild’s contract expires October 31st. “I was just talking to one of the editors today and we both agreed that it would be mutual suicide,” says a Guild member who asked to remain anonymous. “Nobody on either side wants […]

Another regular feature here at Phawker will be truth squad-ing the wingnut memes and distortions of token DN red-stater/ Big Talker gasbag Michael Smerconish. Let us say up front that we have no reason to believe Smerconish is a bad person, per se. Nakedly ambitious, remarkably self-absorbed, a little clueless in the way all patricians are about what really happens beyond their manicured hedgerow? Sure. He’s also polite and well-spoken, especially when sending out invites to one of his this-will-get-me-on-O’Reilly-again verbal hammer parties where he smashes some easy-target liberal glass house with barely contained glee. Usually it’s some diluted-to-suit-local-taste variation […]

Actor/rapper Will Smith could be the latest entertainer to hold a stake in a professional basketball team. The Philadelphian is among a set of investors interested in purchasing the Philadelphia 76ers from Comcast-Spectacor, according to The Philadelphia Daily News. The group, which was assembled by basketball legend Julius “Dr. J” Erving, would like to have a meeting with officials from Comcast in the near future, a source told the newspaper. […] Recent speculation suggests that owners could ask for as much as $450 million for the Sixers, the Daily News reports, adding that the amount would represent the largest price […]

First it was the Metro, and now this gauntlet-throwdown from the City Paper’s painful example of why taking a badly under-resourced and, as a result, aggressively mediocre alt-weekly on-line only makes for a droopy-dog blog, a.k.a. The Clog. Really now, ‘Prophets of Rage’? Good grief. How high was Hickey when he thought that was funny or clever? Loathe though we are to share some of our precociously large and scandal-driven foot traffic with a cyber-doorstop like the Clog, this sucker-punch-wrapped-in-a-rimjob is just too nakedly jealous and syntactically-challenged to ignore: Rave for Doree Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 11:48 am posted […]

Previously: Cassidy Effed Up Bad In Auto Crash CassidyMusic: Admired. Feared. Adored. And In Stitches. VIBE: When Words Attack David Cassidy: The Understudy?

MEDIATOR CALLED IN October 23, 2006 The Guild Monday asked for a federal mediator to help reach a settlement with the Company on a new contract. The action means that the government will provide a neutral party to narrow the issues that the Guild and the Company remain at odds over. The mediator cannot force either side to accept a proposal. His value is to lend an objective hand to a process that now has spanned 11 meetings without much progress. The mediator contacted the Company Monday afternoon and is expected to set up meetings with both sides.On Monday, the […]

OK, first a mea culpa. Since our first installment of this feature, Phawker has learned a valuable lesson: commenting on the pectoral pulchritude of alt-weekly art directors while praising their creative acumen is neither clever nor edgy, it’s hurtful and immature. Sure some people think it’s sexy, but others find it sexist. And that’s just a few letters away from ‘racist.’ And let’s just stop that kind of talk, RIGHT NOW. Anyway, onward and upward. This week is a tough call. Both alt-weeklies have handsome enough covers, for a change. Pictures of handfuls of dangerous drugs always gets our attention. […]