Newspapers

I FEAR YOUR readers were greatly misled by Michael Kubacki's Tuesday June 26 letter to the editor about the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision. He suggests that big corporations like BP, Monsanto and Target have long been "silenced" in the political realm while newspapers like the Daily News offered unlimited opinions. Mr. Kubacki is confused. Nothing has ever kept big corporations from buying advertising in print or broadcast outlets to express their views — nor, indeed, from starting their own newspapers to do so. BP has spent millions of dollars in the last decade on its "greenwashing" advertisements to persuade Americans that oil production and use is benign.

Citing a projected deficit of $17 million for the new fiscal year, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on Thursday announced a massive restructuring that will include the immediate closure of the archdiocesan youth office and the monthly newspaper, as well as the layoffs of about 45 employees. The archdiocese has 244 full-time employees at its headquarters in Center City. The restructuring will shutter the Office of Youth and Young Adults, which operates the CYO sports program, and end publication of The Catholic Standard & Times, and a new monthly magazine, Phaith.

ON WEDNESDAY, when he addressed a conference of Catholic journalists in Indianapolis, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said, "The habits of Catholic culture run very deep in the Philadelphia region. "   On Thursday, Chaput announced deep and drastic cuts for the church back here in Philadelphia, including 45 layoffs, the consolidation of several offices and ministries, and the elimination of its print newspaper, the Catholic Standard & Times, a very old reading habit for local Catholics.

"It is clearly the most valuable and largest community in the world. It's like a new town square — a new water cooler. " — Vincent Schiavone, cofounder of ListenLogic, a market research company based in Fort Washington, speaking of Facebook Inc., which raised more than $16 billion in an initial public offering of shares.   "We're long-term investors. It's nice to have the stock up for one day, but it's only one day. It's hard to extrapolate much as to the future of the company.

WELL, THAT was quick. Greg Osberg, the publisher and chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Network - the parent company of the Daily News , Inquirer , Philly.com and SportsWeek - stepped down Friday, a little more than a month after a group of local investors bought the company for $55 million. The 54-year-old Paoli native had served as the publisher since 2010, when the media company emerged from a lengthy bankruptcy in the hands of out-of-town hedge-fund groups.

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney apologized Thursday for "stupid" high school pranks that he said may have gone too far and moved quickly to stamp out any notion that he bullied schoolmates because they were gay. His swift response reflected the Republican presidential candidate's recognition that his record on gay rights is under heightened scrutiny after President Obama's embrace of gay marriage. One day after gay rights moved to the center of the presidential race with Obama's announcement on same-sex marriage, a Washington Post report about Romney's high school escapades nearly 50 years ago added a personal dimension to Democrats' contention that he's out of step on the sensitive topic.

Flyers goalie Ilya Bryzgalov refused to talk to reporters during the team's postseason media day Thursday, but he candidly told a Russian newspaper he was fed up with the scrutiny he was under during his first year with the club. "What I lived through this season I wouldn't wish to an enemy," he said to reporter Natalia Bragilevskaya of SovSport. ". . . I need to keep working. I understand the fans. They paid their money and want the show. But many forget that we are not robots, but living people.

The Philadelphia Historical Commission's approval Friday of a sign for The Philadelphia Inquirer on the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store at Eighth and Market Streets unleashed a brief uproar over the status of the Daily News under the new owners of Philadelphia Media Network. The historical commission decision involved a Market Street entrance to the headquarters of the media company, not the corner of Ninth and Market, where the company plans a digital display. KYW radio initially reported on its website that "only the Inquirer's name will be featured on the marquee" and not that of the Daily News.

This newspaper's parent company sold last week for $55 million, a staggering $460 million less than what it fetched in 2006. The plight of the company, which also owns the Daily News and Philly.com, reflects trends afflicting newspapers across the country, which continue to bleed revenue and jobs as readers and advertisers migrate to the Internet. It seems that advertising-fueled newspapers, nearly the last institutional bastion of journalism, are not sustainable. The Philadelphia papers' questionable salvation came in the form of rich benefactors.

If Mitt Romney secures the Republican presidential nomination, he might want to start worrying about whether Rick Santorum is going to give him the John McCain treatment. Twice in the 2008 primaries, as McCain was closing in on the nomination, Santorum took to his newspaper column to trash him as moderate. McCain "has too often joined the very people who seek to destroy and replace what we fight to conserve and improve," Santorum wrote. "And so we wonder: Is this the man we can trust to take our case to the American people?"