The Philadelphia Inquirer Is Not A Racist Paper It's A Great Paper! (King of Prussia: sales)

[JimfromPennsyl]

In this Sunday's Inquirer, the newspaper began a series of articles adopting the conclusion that The Philadelphia Inquirer has long been a "racist" newspaper; what a disgrace for the people running this newspaper to disparage this great newspaper like this! Yes it is true that The Philadelphia Inquirer hasn't been as fair at times to the African American and Hispanic communities as it should have during its history but that claim can be leveled at countless organizations in our nation; if one looks at ninety-nine percent of the Fortune 100 companies over the last fifty years they have not been fair in hiring minorities to their executive level but it is wrong to say they are racist, they are great corporations that the American people should be proud of. There was no intention to harm these racial groups of Americans by these organizations, they did fall short of their civic obligations here and need to be called on it but it is going too far labeling them as racist organizations doing so is unjust. A world of difference exists between racist behavior and not doing enough to see a specific group of Americans is treated fairly; racists are like Klu Klux Klan members or people who are segregationist. It is very divisive what the management of the Inquirer is doing here it really undermines their mission to be an asset of the community to help build a good community!

So many of the reasons why the Inquirer management has come to this conclusion are faulty rationales. First, they essentially say the Inquirer is a city paper, specifically a Philadelphia paper, so the demographics of the staff of the paper should look like the demographics of the city, forty percent black! Wrong, the Inquirer is the Philadelphia "regional" paper not the City of Philadelphia paper and for the demographics of the region blacks are a much less percentage than forty percent; if one looks at the subscription and sales base of the paper and the businesses that advertise in the paper an enormous numbers of such are from outside the city. Plus, historically the Daily News was the city paper and the Inquirer was the region's paper, I suspect circulation statistics would strongly show this plus it was apparent that this was the papers' management design for the papers. Over I believe sometime during the last three years the papers' management did away with the Daily News staff and just made this tabloid paper an edition of the Inquirer so one cannot say that the City largely has their own paper now but again this just happened recently.

The Inquirer management believes that over the years the Inquirer has ignored or short changed the black community in Philadelphia. This is baloney! The Inquirer has done many stories on the inadequacies of Philadelphia schools, this has helped the black community in this area. The Inquirer has done many articles on police brutality against black individuals and injustice in the criminal justice system against black individuals, thereby helping the black community. The Inquirer has done articles on how residents of Philadelphia have had their house sold out from under them by fraud affecting black Philadelphians, it has done many articles on unfairness toward black people in getting loans, getting appraisals, selling and buying their home and renting apartments, thereby helping the black community. The editorial board of the Inquirer has endorsed many black candidates for elected office and on many occasions offered its editorial pages to articles from leaders in the black community.

Has there been occasions when Inquirer editors rejected stories that were of great concern to the black community and deserved to be addressed? Sure, Absolutely! And has there been occasions when Inquirer editors rejected stories that had nothing to do with the black community and deserved to be covered, that there was a compelling public interests to cover it but they chose not to? Sure, Absolutely! Here I will give you an example there is a road that has been shut down for repairs in my community for around nine months and people in my community are spending a damn fortune on extra gasoline, not to mention the extra ton of time, to take the back roads to get to King of Prussia because of this created detour and there is no acceptable justification for this. In half the amount of time this road has been closed I could have gone to Home Depot and gotten materials to make the road functional and I don't even work in construction, there is no good reason or set of reasons on God's green earth to explain this construction delay. I haven't read a phrase in the Inquirer on this government incompetence; a great Inquirer editor would send a journalist out to question the government knuckleheads in charge of this screw-up and publish an article spotlighting this government incompetence!

The Inquirer management essentially believes that the extremely low number of blacks on staff as journalists at the Inquirer prior to 2000 is dispositive that the paper was a racist newspaper. Of course that fact was wrong but it does not warrant the label of racism to the paper because what this factual wrong touches on is the societal wrong in our society. Were black journalists being hired by small newspapers where they could learn the fundamental skills of their profession at that time? Were black applicants applying to the Inquirer for jobs at the level of non-black applicants, could it be that this societal mentality that prevailed in our society at that time that opportunities for black people were just not the same as for white people especially in a field such as journalism obstructing black people that had the talent to do the job from applying for a job at the Inquirer? Remember that the Inquirer was the premier newspaper in the Philadelphia region prior to 2000 (as it is today), arguably the Philadelphia Bulletin was up there but they closed it in 1982; during this period a journalist had to be a quality journalist one that new their profession to get a job on staff by and large; so the overall news industry's lack of opportunity for black journalists had something to do with there being an unfairly low number of black journalists on staff of the Inquirer during this period, one cannot put all the blame for this unfairness on the back of the Inquirer which this labeling does!

Frankly, it is really shocking how the Inquirer's management could allow and participate in this trashing of the Inquirer's reputation here. One shouldn't be surprised to see in the future people who are involved in doing bad things in our community ducking the Inquirer journalists or dismissing the Inquirer's good reporting with responses the Inquirer has long been a racist paper their management even acknowledges it and dismissing the work of the Inquirer and thereby somewhat avoiding accountability! Ms. Elizabeth Hughes, the Publisher and CEO of the Philadelphia Inquirer who as the top official of the paper is the person which deserves to be held accountable for this debacle should lose her job over this severely damaging the reputation of the Inquirer, this important asset of our community to help build a better and more good community!

[JacksonPanther]

You seen to think that anything less than a Klan lynching is not and cannot be racist. That's where you're wrong, so your entire screed is best ignored.

[toobusytoday]

Jim, I’d like to kindly suggest that you try a blog forum instead of posting in the forums. You don’t seem to be looking for discussion as much as wanting to lecture everyone.