If political powerbrokers want to buy newspapers, what are the obligations of the journalists involved? What if the journalists, as a group, tend to agree with the politics of the purchasers?
“Nobody wants to stifle news,” said Mr. Rendell, a two-term mayor of Philadelphia in the 1990s.
Journalists at both papers are so concerned that nearly 300 of them signed a public statement last week calling on the current and any future owners to protect the integrity of their reporting. They said the current owner, Philadelphia Media Network (PMN), has censored their coverage of the sale.
“As The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com have gone up for sale once again, we watched with dismay as our own coverage of the process was compromised and censored,” the statement says.
PMN Publisher Greg Osberg denied any censorship.
