Joel Mathis

Philly's two major dailies come under new ownership on Friday, and I couldn't help but notice this quote today from the new guy in charge : Longer term, (new CEO Gregory J. Osberg) said, he wanted to talk with the editors of the newspapers about making them "more distinct from one another." "I think today we are asking our consumers to choose one newspaper or the other, the way we're approaching the news," Osberg said. "If we start to separate the brands, to become more distinct in their editorial missions, there is an opportunity for us to get consumers interested in buying both of the papers on any given day. I'd love to know what Osberg means by that, because the Inquirer and Daily News couldn't seem more different to me. The Inquirer is the suburban newspaper, with lots of coverage of New Jersey and outlying counties that I -- as a Philly resident -- don't generally find all that useful or interesting. (It also tries too hard,

At right is today's front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. It's a demonstration of why -- much as I'd like to support local journalism -- I can't bring myself to subscribe to this paper in print. The big main story ? The one that occupies the two-thirds of the space above the "fold" and is thus the main selling point to buy the paper off the rack? It's a two-day-old story. And it was written by the Los Angeles Times. The first issue is one that print newspapers will always deal with. They simply can't hit the news with the same speed as the web. (The story broke late enough Sunday that the Inky, apparently, couldn't or didn't get it on Monday's front page.) And the Inky's editors, in all fairness, went with a story that analyzes the fallout from the WikiLeaks document dump instead of reporting it as "new" news. The second issue, though, goes to the heart of the Inky's problems. It used to be one of the newspape

We moved to Philadelphia nearly two years ago, and for the first time in my adult life I've gone without a subscription to a local daily newspaper. Why? Easy: It's the 21st century! Why spend money on getting a printed product when you can just go to Philly.com and select the RSS feeds you want to follow? Today, however, that changed. Money's still tight in the Mathis household -- full-time employment sure would be nice! -- but it seemed like a declaration of values is needed. I subscribed to the Philadelphia Daily News. Our first issue should arrive on Friday or Saturday. Again, why? Again: Easy. The Daily News has new owners . And I want them to know how important Philadelphia journalism is to me. To be clear, this isn't passive-aggressive gotcha with Brian Tierney, the would-be media mogul who lost control of the Daily News -- and the Inquirer , and Philly.com -- today. I've been critical of Tierney's seeming cynicism and hucksterism -- but if Tier