Eager Buyers For...Newspapers?

摘要

WHEN PHILADELphia adman Brian P. Tierney announced at a press conference in late May thathis group of local investors had bought the city's two big newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, from Mc-Clatchy Co., he did so with all the panache of Orson Welles in Citizen Kane. Tierney, 49, pretended to have a heart attack at the mention of the 562 million dollars price tag. He kidded that he should be standing to the left of former Republican Governor Mark S. Schweiker, who was there to represent the chamber of commerce-an inside joke since Tierney is a conservative, too. He also sweepingly declared: "The next great era of Philadelphia journalism begins today." Could it be fun to own a newspaper again? For the past six years the business has been one sorry headline after another: falling circulation, ads lost to the Internet, higher newsprint prices. Fed-up investors forced the sale of Knight Rid-der Inc. earlier this year. Now if s Tribune Co.'s turn as the company's second-largest shareholder, Los Angeles' Chandler family, pushes for a breakup.