DEPARTMENT stores used to be a big part of the profits of newspapers, so why shouldn't newspapers in straitened circumstances move into a defunct department store?
By mid-2012, the Daily News and Inquirer will move from the iconic "Tower of Truth" at Broad and Callowhill streets to the former Strawbridge & Clothier at 8th and Market streets, putting paid to an era in both retailing and journalism. The move makes financial sense and spares us aging staffers the depression of feeling the echoing emptiness of the newsrooms Knight-Ridder renovated for much larger staffs.
News organizations have to make more and more wrenching decisions as we transition (or don't) into a very hazy future. We can't assume anything. We especially can't afford to subsidize losing operations, like the Saturday Daily News that has been replaced by Sportsweek.
The Saturday Daily News had been an artistic embarrassment for a long time. In the mid-'50s, it was a pitiful attempt to compete with the Sunday papers with an overstuffed and unimpressive Saturday paper with lousy color comics. Afterward, it limped along with thin advertising support, thinner circulation and papers so skinny they redefined thin. Many five-day-a-week commuter-readers, I'd guess, were barely aware of it.
Sportsweek is something else again. There is now a place for long-form magazine-style stories, like last Saturday's wonderful Zach Berman account of the Flyers' Czech contingent from the same town - the Hall of Fame-level veteran and the ambitious young player who revered him as a kid. There's also a place to dig deeply and analytically into Penn State's shame by John Baer and Bill Conlin, both of whom know more about Happy Valley than anyone else has troubled to learn.
Sportsweek's bloodlines come directly through Sports Illustrated, which is not a bad place to come from. Big photos, lists, Q- and-A sessions and serious graphics fill out a nice package. So buy it. It's worth the money.
As a word guy, I'm not all that fond of showy graphics. (Still don't like the top of the page, above the headline white space inside the Daily News.) But last week's paper provided Page One photos with magnificent impact without the need of a single word: the Nittany Lion statue shedding a single Photoshopped tear and Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, hunched with age and in shadow, shot from behind coming up the ramp into Beaver Stadium. Both tell a story better than any headline ever could.
The press of events has kept me from putting in my couple of cents on "Our Sizzlin' Sexy Singles," a recent Daily News Page One profile of regular folks who look pretty good and may generate your lustful attention. I don't have any problem with the tackiness of it; I did, after all, work for a tabloid for nearly 30 years. And I am aware that I'm probably envious of youth and beauty. Especially youth; I never was a beauty.
What worries me is how easy it is for any publication to go overboard with lists and rankings, which always carry a certain undeniable dopey fascination, as in Rolling Stone lists that make readers splutter: "What do you mean 'Sgt. Pepper's' only No. 3?" The temptation is to do more of it.
Long ago, Philadelphia magazine was something you looked forward to every month, just like the new Beatles album. With reporters like Gaeton Fonzi and Greg Walter filing detailed investigations, the magazine exposed (and sent to jail) people like a corrupt city councilman and an Inquirer reporter who moonlighted as an extortionist. You might argue that the Philly Magazine of those days was a precursor of drastic improvements that would soon remake the Inquirer and the Daily News.
But shelter magazines got trendy and our local one was one of the first. The solid journalistic pieces were soon outnumbered by silliness about where to buy a cheesesteak or an Oriental rug. Or cool places to do things you never before thought of doing. This week's Philadelphia website features the 200 best dentists, the 600 best doctors, 15 best suburban towns to raise kids, 239 best dishes to eat in Philly, the top 50 public high schools, the "Philly Mag 50" and the 85 (or is it 50?) best bars.
I hope the Daily News continues to devote its attention and support to Philadelphians that nobody cares about and keeps taking on bad guys (without ranking them 1 through 5). A little listing goes a long way.