Rendell tried to help Phila. papers

HARRISBURG - Gov. Rendell said yesterday that he arranged a recent meeting between the publisher of The Inquirer and Daily News and the two largest state employee pension funds in hopes of helping the newspaper company lessen its large debt burden.

In the end, nothing came of the discussions between Brian P. Tierney and the State Employees Retirement System and the Public School Employees Retirement System.

Nonetheless, leading media ethics experts called such a pursuit of government aid journalistically troubling.

"A newspaper's primary obligation is to the public . . . and to shine the light of scrutiny on state government on behalf of the public," said Bob Steele, a scholar at the Poynter Institute, a St. Petersburg, Fla., organization that trains journalists. "It at least raises concerns about the potential erosion of journalistic independence."

Tierney, chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media Holdings, which also owns Philly.com, said that "the editorial integrity of the product is in no way impacted."

"If newspapers are to play the vital role they do in a democracy," he said, "then they cannot be put into a special line where they alone stand barred from receiving the economic development dollars that are available to every other business in the state."

Tierney said that he first sought Rendell's help about a year and a half ago. He wanted to see if there were any state agencies interested in moving into The Inquirer and Daily News Building at 400 N. Broad St.

Later, Tierney said, he went to Rendell to determine what, if any, economic-development funds were available from the state. As a result of those discussions, Rendell set up a meeting last autumn between the publisher and the pension funds.

Fund officials at that meeting said that they do not directly invest money into such things as newspapers, according to Tierney.

"Nothing to date has borne fruit," he said, adding that he is nonetheless thankful for Rendell's help in trying to reduce the company's $400 million debt obligation.

Rendell said he treated Tierney and his request no differently from those of any other large Pennsylvania employer. PMH, Rendell said, "is a business first that employs a lot of Pennsylvanians and invests a lot of money into the Pennsylvania economy."

The governor said it "never occurred to me that my willingness to help would in any way influence the editorial policy of the papers."

Pointing to several editorials in the two papers recently, Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor, said that, if anything, the newspapers had been critical of some recent actions.