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Philadelphia Magazine just published an article by Robert Huber titled "Being white in Philly: In a city that is largely poor and segregated white people have become afraid to say anything at all about race. Here's what's not being said."
No, it is not an Onion-esque parody of Philadelphia's most white-bread journalistic institution, a magazine that seemingly hired Gene Marks just because he wrote the jaw-droppingly offensive article “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” for Forbes.
But before I continue, I must first disable the story's booby trap, a defense built into its very DNA: the idea that "in so many quarters, simply discussing race is seen as racist."
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The woman who was punched in the face by Philadelphia Police Lt. Jonathan Josey has a middling criminal record, according to Philadelphia Magazine's Victor Fiorillo: a DUI, theft and “drug charges.”
“Last weekend in North Philadelphia, Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Jonathan Josey struck 39-year-old Ida Guzman with a single punch that has now been seen around the world,” Fiorillo writes. “But it wasn’t the first time that Guzman had a run-in with the police.”
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In the new issue of Harper's magazine, writer David Sirota makes a broadly compelling argument: as more cities become single-newspaper towns, the super-rich owners of surviving publications are all the more able, and likely, to abuse their monopoly news power in a self-interested manner.
But Sirota force-fits the story of Philadelphia's two dailies into the role of supporting actor in the service of a larger narrative of malicious corporate control. [FYI: The online version of the article is only available to Harper's magazine subscribers, God bless their pulpy souls.]
Sirota's Philadelphia story begins in 2006: Republican PR heavyweight Brian Tierney takes over The Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, removing any “internal friction between existing business structure and larger political goals,” he writes. “The professional influence industry simply swallowed the local newspaper monopoly in a single gulp.”
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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is criticizing the Scranton Times-Tribune, Philadelphia Daily News and Associated Press for running an article last week that described an organization led by prominent neo-Nazi Steve Smith as a "white people's rights group.”
“It’s a shame that the European American Action Coalition is being described, ridiculously, as a ‘white rights group,’” SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok tells City Paper. “The reality is obvious from the group’s website. The EAAC is a white supremacist group that promotes well-known right-wing extremists like Derek Black, the son of former Alabama Klan leader Don Black and a racist activist in his own right, Canadian neo-fascist Paul Fromm, and the conspiracy-minded John Birch Society, which once accused President Eisenhower of being a ‘communist agent.’ A simple Google search would have made this plain to anyone who took five minutes to look.”
A Google search would also have quickly produced a photo of Smith, head shaved, standing before a framed portrait of Adolph Hitler. One of the state's most outspoken white supremacists, Smith is described by the SPLC as “a longtime racist activist with a history of violence and top-level ties to numerous white nationalist hate groups.”
A wire story in today's Philadelphia Daily News refers to an organization led by Pennsylvania white supremacist Steve Smith as a “white people's rights group” and does not discuss Smith's long history with the neo-Nazi movement.
The article, about a dispute over an event permit, was originally published in the Scranton Times-Tribune and picked up by the Associated Press.
The original sin certainly lies with the Times-Tribune, but why did the phrase “white people's rights group” make it past editors at the Daily News?
“I suggest you call AP and the Scranton Times-Tribune,” says Daily News city editor Gar Joseph.
Paul Davies, former Inquirer deputy editorial page editor and current Philadelphia Magazine blogger, doesn't know what he's talking about. Or at least if he does, he's not letting on.
You see, Davies doesn't like my cover story on Jeremy Nowak's leadership of the William Penn Foundation. The story detailed a well-funded effort to bolster pro-charter-school organizations and defund education advocacy groups that have traditionally been critical of privatization. But instead of writing a thoughtful rebuttal with any sort of factual detail, Davies just lazily insults my reporting:
“City Paper,” Davies wrote, “wrote a breathless story last week that essentially inferred there was some secret right-wing conspiracy to overthrow public education and turn it into a bunch of privately run charter schools. Never mind, the story was lacking in details to support the thesis, and few critics would speak on the record."
Davies' column exemplifies a common establishment response to William Penn: A "breathless" gratitude to a moneyed foundation for bothering to care that Philadelphia exists — so infatuated as to lose sight of all critical consideration.
Today's Inquirer includes two articles (here and here) on the William Penn Foundation, including the big news that William Penn announced a $15 million grant to the pro-charter Philadelphia School Partnership―a scoop that we reported yesterday and that William Penn had refused to confirm.
Indeed, William Penn president Jeremy Nowak gave his Inquirer interview yesterday―after our story broke―making it seem pretty darn obvious William Penn spoke with the Inquirer as part of an effort to push back against a City Paper story they are very unhappy with.
And while the Inquirer cited our article, they did not report or follow up on its three most important scoops:
WHYY news director Chris Satullo dedicated his Monday morning address to Philly public schools and the dramatic “reorganization plan” put forth by the state-controlled School Reform Commission (SRC).
I'm not surprised that Satullo got this wrong. But it is striking in how many ways he managed to do so.
I'll make this brief:
The sign welcoming visitors to the Inquirer and Daily News' new building's marquee on Market East will not, KYW Newsradio reported last week, include the logo of the embattled Daily News.
Or, maybe it will, it turns out.
“Don’t worry, our proud Daily News logo WILL be prominently displayed on the side of our new headquarters,” Assistant City Editor Josh Cornfield wrote in an email to staff. Publisher Greg Osberg told him (and KYW) that the Historical Commission rejected including both logos: the old-timey Inquirer font would be a better fit for the historic Strawbridge's entrance.
The Philadelphia Inquirer “Assault on Learning” series won a Pulitzer Prize today, and the reporting team, by and large, deserves heartfelt congratulations. But the series' last installment, “Armed with Guns and Understanding,” evidenced major journalistic shortcomings and dangerously propagandized in favor of arming Philadelphia's school police. At the risk of this seeming in poor taste while champagne bottles pop on North Broad, this critique was published in November:
What is up with the Inquirer's campaign to arm school cops?
The Philadelphia Inquirer has dedicated article after article to its "Assault on Learning" series, describing a school district where students suffer from widespread violence that administrators underreport so as to not look "persistently dangerous" on paper. They exposed a dysfunctional early intervention program that enrolls nearly everyone — again, like standardized test scores, looks great on paper — and helps almost no one. And they disclosed that school police receive little training and even less vetting. This year, one uniformed officer appeared in court the first day of school — to face charges for crack possession.
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