PW’s Steve Volk is reporting that the sale of PW to Village Voice Media (AKA New Times) is NOT the done deal Philebrity has been reporting, and reveals yet another apparent bidder: In a story published on Tuesday evening, a local blog reported that PW had already been sold to Village Voice Media (VVM), a Phoenix-based chain of alternative newsweeklies. That report now appears to be erroneous, and the bidding is ongoing. PW: Get Back Jo Jo
MEDIA: Feds Arrest CBS Staffers For Filming Conditions At War Veteran’s Hospital
PHILADELPHIA — TWO CBS 3 staffers were detained Thursday by officers assigned to the Veterans Administration Hospital (39th & Woodland) for videotaping without permission.The pair were caught “in an area of the nursing facility where they were not allowed to be,” Rich Manieri, U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman, told us Friday. A female photographer was fined $150 for disorderly conduct after putting up some sort of struggle when confronted, and was also fined $50 for trespassing and $50 for unauthorized photography. A male producer also received the lesser two fines. VA officers confiscated a videotape from the CBS 3 crew and […]
CHIX WE DIG: Marty Moss-Coane, Host & Executive Producer of WHYY’s Radio Times & Total Babia Majora
BY JONATHAN VALANIA How do we love Marty? Let us count the ways: The way she picks Philadelphia’s brain every day for two hours, leading listeners through two completely different, but somehow relevant, topics of interest — with confidence, class and MILF-y aplomb. The way she never loses her cool or raises her voice or engages in ad hominem attacks, and expects her guests and callers to do the same; how she enforces that covenant with the gentle firmness of a Cub Scout den mother. The way she and her girlfriends — back when they were teenagers — sometimes went […]
Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?
WINNER: DAILY NEWS?
COMING ATTRACTION: Chix We Dig
Coming soon! A PHAWKER Q&A with WHYY’s Marty Moss-Coane [above, 1969]
MEDIA: Evolve Or DIE
For the first time in years, every sector of television news lost audience in 2006, and newspapers, despite garnering a larger audience than ever for their content via online platforms, faced increasingly downbeat assessments of their business models, a new report from the D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism finds. According to the fourth-annual edition of State of the News Media, shifting economic fundamentals are spurring mainstream news organizations to try to build audience around “franchise” areas of coverage, specialties, and even crusades. Cable’s”argument culture” is giving way to an “answer culture,” a growing pattern that has news outlets, programs, […]
The Case Of The Vanished Owner, The Silent V.P. & The Newspaper That Got Scooped On Its Own Sale, Possibly
As you may well have heard by now, the following item appeared in Michael Klein’s Inqlings column in this Sunday’s Inquirer: The Philadelphia Weekly is on the market, according to publishing sources around town. I hear that the asking price for the freebie formerly known as the Welcomat is north of $25 million and that Review Publishing LP has signed confidentiality statements with prospects. It’s not clear whether other Review papers — the Atlantic City Weekly and the South Philly Review and the Southwest Philadelphia Review — are involved. Neither publisher Anthony A. Clifton [NOT pictured], who’s owned the paper […]
DN’s Philly Confidential Gives TODAY I SAW Props
BY DAVID GAMBACORTA I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now that reporters rarely, if ever, witness a crime that we end up writing about. Ninety-nine percent of the time, someone gets shot, our little breaking news pagers go off, and we dash out to the crime scene. But every now and then, someone comes along and tells us what it’s like when you fall into that other one percent. Super friends, meet Jeff Deeney. Jeff’s a local freelance writer who also doubles a social worker in our troubled town. He details his gritty and sometimes unpleasant encounters in a vivid […]
PHILLY MAG: Looking For Rosebud In The Winter Of Our Dissed Content
Press Lord 2.0 Can a self-made ad man with big ideas and a Walter Annenberg fascination save the Inquirer and Daily News? Maybe. But when Brian Tierney’s finished, the newspaper business may never be the same By Jason Fagone THEY HAD LET THE PLACE GO TO HELL. Tierney could see it the first day he walked in the door. In the lobby alone, the paint was peeling and the floor was dirty. The reception desk was plated with metal that gave off a chilly, clinical vibe. Off in the corner was an old Panasonic on a TV cart, an orange […]
WASHINGTON POST Runs John Doe Editorial From Patriot Act Victim
[Excerpted from The Washington Post] My National Security Letter Gag Order BY JOHN DOE Friday, March 23, 2007; Page A17 The Justice Department’s inspector general revealed on March 9 that the FBI has been systematically abusing one of the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act: the expanded power to issue “national security letters.” It no doubt surprised most Americans to learn that between 2003 and 2005 the FBI issued more than 140,000 specific demands under this provision — demands issued without a showing of probable cause or prior judicial approval — to obtain potentially sensitive information about U.S. […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Don’t Blinq, You’ll Miss It
From: Gordon, Anne Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 5:13 PM To: Inquirer Subject: metro column news Staff, I am pleased to announce that Dan Rubin [pictured, left] will become a full-time Metro columnist, effective immediately. His column will appear on Wednesdays. He eventually will move to twice a week. Meanwhile, Annette John-Hall will debut her column this Friday. Annette delayed the start of her try out so that she might tend to some personal issues. She is back now and ready to write. Please welcome her new column, focusing on local issues, people and places, when it appears tomorrow. Anne […]
SPANK THE MONKEY: Philly Judge Strikes Down Fed Porn Law
Writing that he “may not turn a blind eye to the law in order to attempt to satisfy my urge to protect this nation’s youth by upholding a flawed statute,” a federal judge in Philadelphia this morning struck down another of Congress’ attempts to restrict pornography on the Internet.U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. ruled that the 1998 Children’s Online Protection Act was ineffective, overly broad and violated First Amendment’s free-speech clause because it was not the “least restrictive” way Congress could have tackled the thorny problem of children’s access to pornography on a personal computer. The law, known […]