Philly Inquirer’s Loeb Bounces Back to Washington Post as Local Editor

 Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli announced today that Vernon Loeb, Philadelphia Inquier's deputy managing editor/news, is returning to the Post as local editor.

Loeb's resume is a document of back-and-forth adventures betwen the two papers. Previously, he was a reporter for the Post. He started that stint in 1994 after leaving the Inquirer for the first time.

Romenesko posted the memo earlier today:

From: Marcus Brauchli

Sent: 01/05/2011 12:17 PM EST

To: NEWS

Subject: A New Local Editor

To the Staff:

We are pleased to announce that Vernon Loeb will be returning to The Post as Local Editor.

Vernon joins us from The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he has been deputy managing editor for news, overseeing the metro, business, health & science and national/foreign desks, as well as the newsroom’s interactions with Philly.com. It’s his second stint at the Inquirer, having previously covered the statehouse and City Hall and done a tour as a correspondent in Southeast Asia.



Loeb



The last time he decamped from Philadelphia, in 1994, it was also to The Post, where he covered the second round of Marion Barry as mayor, before moving to the National Staff to cover the CIA and the Pentagon. He left The Post after a decade to run California investigations for the Los Angeles Times.



Vernon is a tremendously talented, high-energy journalist, whose enthusiasm for what we do is infectious. In his new job, he will drive our coverage of the region, ensuring we are serving our readers, both print and digital, the smartest, freshest and most authoritative news and features on the issues that matter most to them. It’s a good match: this is a highly competitive market, and Vernon is an intensely competitive editor.

He will start on Feb. 1 and report to Liz Spayd.



As part of this transition, Senior Web Editor Jane Elizabeth and the PostLocal.com team will soon join the Local staff, with Jane spearheading Local digital initiatives and reporting to Vernon. Prior to joining the Post as Local Web News Editor a year ago, Jane was a senior editor at The Virginian-Pilot, supervising teams covering the military, politics and government, as well as medicine, health, environment, transportation, religion and consumer issues. At the Post, she has been instrumental in PostLocal.com’s growing success. This move, which will combine our Local content creation and web teams into one seamless operation, is aimed at ramping up our Local efforts across all platforms. David Marino-Nachison will continue to be Local Innovations Editor.

Vernon is married to Patricia Ford Loeb, a distinguished public and commercial radio reporter and editor. They have four children – one out of college, one in, and twins who are seniors in high school. Loeb has been known to run a marathon or two (54 actually, ed.) and is an ardent Phillies fan.



Please join us in welcoming Vernon back to the newsroom.

Marcus

Liz

Raju

Philly Newspaper Creditors Lose Appeal

Philadelphia Newspapers L.L.C., which owns The Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com, can bar its senior lenders from using their debt to try to purchase the company at auction.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, 2-1, with a lower-court ruling that the bankruptcy code requires only that the lenders receive the "indubitable equivalence" - or fair value - of their debt when the company is sold at auction, reported Christopher K. Hepp of the Inquirer.

The auction is central to the company's reorganization plan, which now calls for senior lenders to be paid about $67 million to settle about $318 million in debt. The auction would establish whether that, indeed, was a fair price for the company.

With the ruling, the company is now set to be put up for auction April 27.

Guild: Philadelphia Newspapers Using Bargaining as an Assault on Guild Members

The Bargaining Committee of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia Local 10 issued a memo to all Guild members last week saying that management has turned the bargaining process into an assault on Guild members and their work ethic.

The memo was published this morning on Romenesko. Here is the text:

From: Guild Bulletin
Sent: Wed 10/14/2009 4:07 PM
Subject: Philadelphia Newspapers Insults Guild Members, Stalls Productive Bargaining in Apparent Attempt to Sabotage the Enterprise.

Dear Guild member,

Philadelphia Newspapers today turned a contract bargaining session into an assault on the Guild’s members and our work ethic. The lack of substantive bargaining on the company's part suggests that it might be trying to sabotage its own bankruptcy reorganization plan and the entire enterprise in recognition that it may not prevail.

In what should be considered demeaning to every member of the Guild, the company's high-priced out-of-town lawyer said that an online enterprise such as Philly.com has a different work ethic than what is commonly found at major metropolitan newspapers such as those that we have devoted our lives to. Another company official referred to our contract as a "burdensome industrial model."

We also heard the company say our advertising reps' performance goals and disciplinary programs are not strong enough to compete with other media operations.

The battery of unspeakable insults, a thinly veiled attempt to stall productive talks, came during discussion of the Guild's proposal to make Philly.com a part of our bargaining unit.

The company's failure to submit economic proposals to accompany proposals that already seek to destroy our contract is the opposite of constructive, good-faith bargaining. It appears increasingly clear that the company has no intention of actually reaching a contract with our Guild thus jeopardizing its own survival plan. The company's own bankruptcy plan calls for having contracts acceptable to its Stalking Horse bidder (made up of company insiders Bruce Toll and the Carpenters Union Pension Fund, and philanthropist David Haas) before that group puts up any money.

While the company pursues bargaining proposals that strip our contract of seniority, claiming it is necessary to achieve an economic advantage in an increasingly competitive market, it continues to throw money at a costly and time consuming legal battle in the courts. This approach keeps draining assets from the estate, possibly in efforts to do further harm to the operation to spite the senior lenders in the event they take control.

The Guild and Philadelphia Newspapers have not set our next bargaining date.

In solidarity,

The Bargaining Committee of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia Local 10

Owners of Philadelphia Papers File for Bankruptcy

Philadelphia Newspapers, a subsidiary of Philadelphia Media Holdings, the owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News, filed for bankruptcy protection Sunday to restructure a $390 million debt burden.

It's the second major newspaper bankruptcy filing over the past weekend. On Saturday, Journal Register Co. announced its own bankruptcy filing. Philadelphia Newspapers LLC said it has paid $13.4 million in penalty interest and fees in the past 11 months while negotiating a change in its loan agreement. The owners said the papers will continue to publish.

"This restructuring is focused solely on our debt, not our operations," CEO Brian P. Tierney said in a statement, and that the papers are sound and profitable.

Philadelphia Newspapers is asking for court approval of $25 million in debtor-in-possession financing, which it had arranged with NewSpring Capital in Radnor, Pa.

Update on the Philly Inquirer

Ryan Sholin on his web site has a follow up on the Philadelphia Inquirer's policy regarding when it posts stories on the web. He interviews Chris Krewson, executive editor for online news at the Inquirer.

The Web Is Your Friend

Yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer announced a new policy on posting on the web. Its internal memo, as reported by Romenesko, in part read:

Colleagues – Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts. What that means is that we won't post those stories online until they're in print. We'll cooperate with philly.com, as we do now, in preparing extensive online packages to accompany our enterprising work. But we'll make the decision to press the button on the online packages only when readers are able to pick up The Inquirer on their doorstep or on the newsstand.

If I read this right, not only will the Inquirer hold the story from its web site until the paper is published, but it will not post the story until the paper is delivered.

Papers with policies such as this often die. It is not 1995. Newspapers have to aggressively use the web to their advantage, not only in the editorial process, but in marketing and advertising. In order for news organizations (that is, newspapers) to grow in the 21st Century, they have to shed themselves from the ideal that the primary source of news today is the ink and paper product.

And, what does it mean when the memo says they "we'll co-operate with philly.com". Aren't they working for the same team?

This seems to be a short-sighted policy, and unfortunately, they are not alone in newspaper journalism.