Concern Over New Philly Newspaper Owners

At an auction conducted on Wednesday, the struggling and increasingly irrelevant Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News as well as their Internet arm "Philly.com" were all purchased by a group of creditors. The new owners have quickly come under fire from the top politicians at both the Commonwealth and the City levels.

Governor Ed Rendell, the former 2-term Mayor of Philadelphia, voiced his concern that he believed that newspapers should  be owned by people from the area. He further stated "In the end, the newspaper is nothing if not the people who work for it. If you take that away, you take away it's soul."

Mayor Michael Nutter, the current Philly head honcho, called on the new owners to make their decisions on how to proceed with the operation of the papers "based on great journalism" rather than being overly concerned with the financial bottom line.

Both of these comments mask the actual concern of these two leading Democratic Party politicians. Their real primary concern is that with new ownership will come a basic change of direction in the editorial content and presentation of the two papers.

For decades, the Philadelphia Inquirer and even more overtly the Daily News have been outwardly liberal in their political and social commentaries and with the vast majority of their political endorsements. It is this liberal ideology as directed by Rendell and Nutter's Democrats that has demoralized Philly and reduced it to a shell of it's former greatness.

Rather than using their status as the city and region's main newspapers and internet presence to call for reform and change to a system that has resulted in massive numbers of citizens and businesses fleeing the city over the last few decades, the two papers have continually backed the status quo.

The newspaper business has been dying all across America for the past couple of decades. This is partly due to the Internet, partly due to 24-hour news, sports, weather, and entertainment television channels. But there is still a niche that properly run newspapers could fill. Unfortunately most have been taken over, as Philly's papers were, by partisan political shills. As this became more and more obvious, more and more people turned away from regular readership and subscriptions.

The "soul" that Rendell speaks of, those editors, writers, and staffers who put the newspapers out on the streets, and the old ownership that hired them, supported them, and encouraged them to push that liberal agenda and back those Democratic politicians is directly to blame.

Rather than maintaining the former status quo and leaving every worker untouched, and leaving the newspapers to continue their failed direction that has in turn failed the citizens of Philadelphia, the new owners should do exactly the opposite of what Rendell and Nutter are hoping.

If it is determined that Philadelphia needs and has the viability to support two newspapers, which is dubious at best, or if only one should survive, change is absolutely vital. The editorial direction and content of the papers and website in every department needs to reflect a much greater diversity of opinions. Particular attention needs to be paid towards making Philadelphia, other localities, Pennsylvania, and national pols much more accountable.

Ed Rendell and Michael Nutter, as well as a number of individuals who work for both newspapers, and any number of liberal activists all around the Philly region are concerned over the possible direction that the new ownership will take. They should be concerned that their domination of the conversation, one-way in the wrong direction for decades, will cease, and that Philadelphia may indeed see it's newspapers become what they were meant to be all along, a true watchdog.

Rendell is Wrong on Guns

The governor of Pennsylvania wants to take away your Constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. He believes that there are guns flying or walking around his Commonwealth and this nation on their own, blasting away at the citizens under his charge. He believes that if he just takes away your guns, then the bad people who want to sell drugs and rob folks will never again have firearms in their hands. This must be the case. He must believe that, like some crazed cartoon, a gun walks up to people on its own and demands their cash. Or that a gun shoots itself at people on a drug corner. Or that guns leave their homes, drive down the block in their cars, and kill police officers. Never mind all of the evidence that seems to point to something completely different. That there actually do seem to be human beings who are carrying those guns, robbing people with them, and pulling the trigger to shoot people. And there is a funny thing about the vast majority of the people who it seems are always carrying those guns. They have a criminal record, have been arrested by law enforcement already, been convicted by juries and judges already, and been sent to prison already. Unfortunately for their subsequent robbery and assault and murder victims, many of them have been released early from their sentences. People sentenced to 15-20 year sentences get out routinely in a half dozen years. People sentenced to 25 years behind bars are out in a decade. And what do the heavy majority then do? They return to a life of crime, often using guns to accomplish this task. But perhaps Governor Ed Rendell understands this, and maybe he just thinks that if we do away with guns then it will be more difficult for these individuals to obtain them. What do you think? Do you think that if a bad guy wants to get a gun, no matter what kind of laws and restrictions the Governor has instituted, that he will not be able to get one? I mean, there are literally tens of thousands of guns already in the hands of private citizens across the country, and no amount of legislation enacted is going to ever do away with that fact. No, the fact is that bad guys will always be able to get their hands on guns, and the further fact is that Governor Ed Rendell knows it. He is not a stupid man, he is just a politician, and what politicians have learned over the years to do best is to make people feel good, to make them feel as if the politicians are doing something, anything, to help alleviate problems. Just like any other politician who has ever said them, Governor Rendell knows that when he and other pols speak lines such as "We're going after the guns! This is outrageous, all these shootings! Something has to be done, and we're going to do it!" he sounds tough, and some people believe it means he is looking out for them. The fact is that politicians know that they can never do away with all the guns out there, and that they cannot keep them out of the hands of bad guys. They simply do not have the political courage to stand up and tell you the truth, that the vast majority of gun crimes, like any other crimes, are committed by the same small percentage of the population over and over again, and that if you just keep these folks off the streets, crime will drop precipitously. If someone gets 25 years in jail, keep them in jail for 25 years. That's a quarter of a century that some violent criminal will not be able to victimize society. If they commit another such crime on being released, double their penalty. That pretty much takes them out of the game for the rest of their lives and ours. Spray paint doesn't cause graffiti, ignorant and delinquent people do. Matches don't light forest fires, careless and reckless people do. Guns don't rob, injure, and kill, dangerous people do. If the Governor and others like him are ever successful in restricting or limiting the purchase of guns, then the only people who will have a hard time getting their hands on them will be law abiding citizens such as you and I. There is a popular argument that these generally liberal politicians like to make, that individuals should be able to own a handgun, but not high-powered, military-style, automatic or semi-automatic weapons. They like to say that no one needs weapons such as those. Why is that? Who are they to decide that they know better than the framers of our American Constitution, who envisioned ownership of private firearms as a means of ensuring that the government could not oppress the people at the barrels of its own guns one day? Americans have the right, guaranteed by our Constitution, to protect ourselves with private firearm ownership. That was the intent of our Founding Fathers, that has been the position of numerous court decisions down through our history, and that is the reality of the situation. Liberal politicians such as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell would be far more sincere, and far more effective, if they spent less time worrying about taking away our guns and more time worrying about taking away freedom from criminals and keeping them behind bars where they belong.