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Richard Aregood

What I Do

Richard Aregood started at the Daily News as a police reporter and left 29 years later as the editor of the editorial page. He's now the Charles R. Johnson Professor of Journalism at the University of North Dakota.

Easy to hold, fun to read — hard to kill?

ROLFE NEILL WAS the first editor of the Daily News after the sale to Knight Newspapers Inc. more than 40 years ago. A master of promotion and branding, one of his first acts as editor was to demand that the building at Broad and Callowhill streets bear the name of both newspapers above the entrance. Until then, the Daily News was effectively a tenant in its own headquarters – in the Inquirer Building. And it was done. In fact, the message was so clear that the simple block letters of the Daily News logo were visually dominant over the fussy gothic script of the Inquirer’s. It was an affirmation that “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” the Daily News stepchildren, had a chance of attracting the creative and financial support of the parent company. At the Daily News, every day since its founding has been another Agincourt fight for survival.

Richard Aregood | Columnist 

Richard Aregood: Image vs. reality

'PROFESSOR" Bernarr Macfadden started his career as a wrestler, body-builder and promoter of a diet based on carrots, nuts and raw eggs. He made his fortune as a publisher who believed that sexual repression was every bit as dangerous as refined sugar, white bread and coffee. His publications specialized in semi-nudes of body-builders and weirdly sexualized magazines like True Romances and True Confessions.

Richard Aregood | Columnist 

Richard Aregood: Naked yoga versus future of Philly journalism

WHAT I wouldn't give to be writing about the Daily News putting naked yoga on Page One this month. Instead, we're back to the continuous struggle for survival, which is much less fun than naked anything. Last week, even more of the few, the proud, the staffers of the Daily News and the Inquirer were either bought out or laid off as the current management tries to tidy up the books for yet another set of new owners.

Richard Aregood | Columnist