Tony Ridder must have some kind of grudge against me. First, the Knight Ridder boss decimated the Biloxi Sun Herald when I was a reporter there. Now he's gutting what's left of the Inquirer and the Daily News, the papers I fell in love with as a kid, the papers that made me want to be a journalist in the first place.

The Sun Herald was a decent newspaper until Knight Ridder started in with the scalpel. Our lone education reporter quit and we didn't hire a new one. They forced out our ace statehouse reporter and put in a clueless rookie to save money. The amount of space devoted to news shrank. That helped make up for having fewer reporters, but editors were still desperate for copy. "Just give me seven inches," my editor would beg. "I'll give you seven inches," I'd say to myself.

Knight Ridder sent memos telling us that readers want shorter, more positive stories. The first thing our editors did with that information was send us out looking for uplifting stories about race relations — in Mississippi! Far as I could tell, our readers only cared about injured animals and the rebel flag.

Staff morale went into the toilet. It wasn't helped by a Christmas luncheon in which the managing editor offered up a long prayer to her "lord and master" Jesus Christ before letting us hit the buffet.

The situation must be far more excruciating here in Philly, where Knight Ridder is slashing 75 newsroom jobs at the Inky and 25 at the DN. Especially at the Inky, where they're haunted by memories of the good old days under editor Gene Roberts, when the paper averaged almost a Pulitzer Prize a year during the 1970s and 1980s.

Used to be, we could buy the morning paper and read Mark Bowden, now famous for Black Hawk Down; Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights; and Steve Lopez, the best columnist this city ever had. That star-studded lineup is gone now. In the 15 years since Roberts left, the paper has won just a single Pulitzer.

The Daily News never had the same firepower. What it did have was a certain hard-boiled charm, running headlines like "Side Order of Lead" after a mafioso got whacked outside the Melrose Diner. The tabloid had gonzo personalities and a kick-ass sports section. Jack McKinney was a boxing writer who also happened to be the music critic. Bill Conlin, who's still around, is as likely to quote William Shakespeare as he is Charlie Manuel.

The news side boasted columnist Pete Dexter, who went on to write God's Pocket, my favorite novel about Philly. Dexter got his material in corner taprooms and wrote for the locals. He did, that is, until he got stomped outside a bar by some folks who were offended by a column he'd written. That they were upset enough to almost murder Dexter was a backhanded compliment to his importance. These days, they may still read the paper, but their kids are probably getting their news from TV and the Internet — if they're getting it at all.

Numbers show that newspaper readership is dropping by one-third with each passing generation. Knight Ridder's response has been to eliminate staff and cut costs. For the moment, this has served to maintain its stock price and profit margins. But its papers are going downhill. And the slope is slippery. Unless the company gets creative, it's heading toward a future of lower circulation, staff cuts and declining quality, followed by further circulation losses.

I didn't realize how much I missed the old Inquirer until the City Hall bugging scandal broke. I kept wishing Lopez was still here to skewer the guilty. Instead, we got merely competent reporting and columns from the painfully unfunny Tom Ferrick and John Grogan, who needs to go back to writing about organic gardening.

The kind of fluff you read in the Inquirer these days is nauseating to anyone who cares about journalism, and it's only going to get worse. I just read an article about how shopping actually counts as exercise. Two wealthy suburban women kept a diary of their trip to New York City. First entry: "Too excited to sleep. A whole day of shopping! We're princesses, and our kingdom is Fifth Avenue."

If Gene Roberts were dead, he'd be rolling over in his grave.

Peter Woodall is a local writer. If you would like to respond to this Slant or submit one of your own (750 words), e-mail duane@citypaper.net.