“Rethinking Philadelphia” Draws City into a Dialogue

But the Daily News is zagging along a new path these days with a regular feature called “Rethinking Philadelphia” that explores the weighty issues surrounding the city’s long-term economic health. Folded into the same edition with the impotence cream story was an eight-page broadsheet pull-out examining how the city could better capitalize on the region’s colleges.

It is an odd mix but Daily News executive editor Zack Stalberg says it’s very much in keeping with the paper’s tradition. “The Daily News has always been willing to do unconventional things,” he says. “We’re using the Daily News formula for creating interesting stories and applying it to these larger subjects.”

Stalberg is quick to point out that “Rethinking Philadelphia” is not a project but a permanent part of the paper. It has its own editor with his own staff of reporters, though many reporters on the city staff have had stories appear under the “Rethinking” logo, a photo of Rodin’s famous “Thinker.”

In addition to occasional pieces in the daily paper, the “Rethinking” staff produces “quarterly reports,” like the section on higher education. There have been three others, examining tourism, the city’s neighborhoods and the upcoming mayor’s race.

The quarterly reports are followed by breakfast meetings of community leaders and citizens involved in the issues explored in the reports. The Chamber of Commerce helps underwrite the breakfasts.

Chamber president Charles Pizzi says he wanted to get involved in the project because he was excited by the prospect of engaging “a wide group of informed people with diverse perspectives” in discussions about the city’s future.

Creating a Dialogue

“This took a one-way conversation, which is what newspapers normally have,” says Pizzi, “and turned it into a dialogue, where you really do try to effect change instead of just saying, ‘this is what’s wrong with the city.’ “

For example, Pizzi says, the breakfast that followed the quarterly report on colleges and universities attracted students from campuses in and around the city. A student from suburban Villanova University pointed out that fewer students visit the city since SEPTA, the city’s mass transit system, eliminated subsidized student fares.

“Also at that meeting,” recalls Pizzi, “was SEPTA’s general manager, Jack Leary. He said, ‘I think we can reinstitute that.’ So it’s been constructive.”

Even Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, who initially objected to the whole idea that Philadelphia needed to be “rethought,” has become a fan. At his annual address to the Chamber of Commerce, Rendell recommended the most recent quarterly report, “The Race for our Future,” on the upcoming mayoral campaign. (Rendell, completing his second term, cannot run again). The mayor said that after complaining that newspapers focus too much on insider politics and not enough on issues, it was refreshing to see the Daily News give the race such thoughtful coverage.

“Rethinking Philadelphia” started as a one-shot package of stories in the spring of 1997 that looked at the unusual number of civic improvement projects going on designed to make the city a tourist destination. Stalberg says that when he looked at that special section, he realized the paper stood to gain from taking an active role in re-imagining the city’s future.

“The future of the Daily News is wrapped up in the future of Philadelphia,” says Stalberg. As cities decline and their population moves to the suburbs, most papers are free to follow and court suburban readers. But Stalberg says that because the same company, Knight Ridder, owns the Daily News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, his paper will never have that option.

“The Inquirer’s mission is more and more to reach suburban readers,” explains Stalberg. “Our mission is to cover the city for the people who live here.”

The challenge, he says, is to make the stories relevant to those readers. “We’ve done that in a variety of ways,” says Stalberg. “We’ve tried to keep most of the stories manageable in length. We involve human beings in a lot of these stories. These are not stories for policy wonks. These are stories for people who live here and feel their future is tied up in the city’s.

“We seem to be running out of nerds,” was the inimitable Daily News-style lead on a “Rethinking” story about the quick exit many of the region’s 220,000 college students make after graduating.

And the sections feature lots of pictures and colorful graphics. In fact, the art takes up more space than the copy.

The Best Use of Resources?

More than a few Daily News staffers remain unconvinced that “Rethinking Philadelphia” is the best use of the paper’s resources. Partly because of the business community’s involvement in the breakfast meetings, the sections are seen as soft and even “promotional,” says “Rethinking” reporter Erin Einhorn.

Einhorn disagrees. “It could be soft if we didn’t do our job well but any beat could,” she says. “Just because you’re concerned about the future of the city doesn’t mean you’re on the side of business leaders. On the contrary, we’re making them do their jobs better.”

Indeed, it seems an odd criticism, considering the tough approach the reporters have taken with city boosters. One of the early “Rethinking” stories examined a business group’s claim that, contrary to a common concern, the city does, indeed, have sufficient hotel rooms to host a major national convention. The group offered a list of hotel rooms as proof. Daily News reporter Theresa Conroy visited some of the hotels on the group’s list and found they were next to drug hang-outs or had other weaknesses likely to scare away tourists.

A more nagging issue at the paper seems to be that regular local coverage is suffering while the paper is hiring reporters for “Rethinking.” The Daily News, for instance, has no labor reporter – a deficiency felt during a three-week city transit strike.

“There’s definitely a trade-off,” concedes Stalberg. But he defends the way he has juggled resources. “So we’re paying far less attention to a murder or a fire that has no great significance to it and that’s okay with me. The Daily News’s future is in enterprise reporting and I consider ‘Rethinking Philadelphia’ to be a subset of that. When we lead the paper with news that’s conventional, like Iraq, we feel badly because everybody has that story and we can’t do much on that that’s unique.

“We’re trying to draw readers by offering stories you can’t find anywhere else and being an advocate for the reader. ‘Rethinking Philadelphia’ is trying to do that, to say ‘You live in the city, you care about the city, and we do too.’ As a journalist, I find that a lot more satisfying than covering a two-alarm fire in North Philadelphia.”