Rieder: Impasse Must End At Divided Philly Paper

This story first appeared in USA Today.

The bitter battle between dueling owners is poisonous for the Philadelphia region.

Talk about awkward.

On Friday, a judge reinstated fired Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Bill Marimow. That means that Marimow is once again working for a publisher who not only bounced him but has repeatedly insulted him, and for a bitterly split, dysfunctional ownership group in which one faction desperately wants him gone.

What's more, the losing side in the rancorous legal battle over the paper's newsroom says it's going to appeal, meaning yet more uncertainty about what lies ahead.

Which raises a question: Why would anyone want this job? In Marimow's case, the situation is complicated by the fact his contract expires next April 30. Why go through five more months of turmoil, then split the scene anyway?

The embattled editor says he's constrained from saying much about the tense, unusual situation, particularly since courtroom combat seems far from over. But he took a stab.

"I love the Philadelphia area," he says. "It's my hometown. I know the city, and the Pennsylvania suburbs, and the South Jersey suburbs and the Jersey Shore." And, he feels, the depth of that knowledge, forged through many years of journalism in the city, provides critical advantages when it comes to steering the ship.

Marimow grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. (Disclosure: Marimow is a friend and a fellow Philly guy.) He worked at the Inquirer for 21 years, winning two Pulitzer Prizes as an investigative reporter during the paper's glory days as one of the nation's finest under the great editor Gene Roberts. After stints at the Baltimore Sun and NPR — both ended badly — Marimow, known for his commitment to ambitious, hard-edged (some might say old-school) reporting, returned to the Inquirer in the top newsroom post in 2006.

But when new owners took over the paper four years later — the Inquirer has had five, count 'em, five, owners in seven years — Marimow was demoted. The new regime felt he just wasn't a digital enough dude to run a paper in the current media landscape. So in 2011, Marimow decamped from his beloved Philly to run, yep, a digital journalism program at Arizona State University.

But the turbulence at the Inquirer continued, and the following year the paper was sold yet again, along with the Philadelphia Daily News and the website philly.com. The new owners were six wealthy Philadelphians, two of whom make up the management committee that runs the company, Interstate General Media.They asked Marimow to return to the Inquirer to once again oversee the its newsroom. He jumped at the chance.

But one of those management committee members, George Norcross, soon grew disenchanted with his new editor. Norcross is a major South Jersey political player and a wealthy businessman used to getting his way. Working through the pliant Publisher Bob Hall, he pressured Marimow to make changes, including cutting back sharply on editorial pages and local columnists. Finally, Hall ordered Marimow to fire five top editors.

Marimow did make some of the changes that Norcross and Hall wanted. But the editor demurred at firing his lieutenants, traditionally a decision made by the editor, not the business side. Marimow no doubt was counting on support from the other managing partner, Lewis Katz, a parking lot magnate and former owner of the New Jersey Nets. Katz's companion is Nancy Phillips, an award-winning reporter who is now the Inquirer's city editor — and a Marimow protege.

But, to everyone's surprise, on Oct. 7, Hall fired Marimow. Katz and fellow owner H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest sued to have Hall ousted and Marimow reinstated. They batted .500, as Judge Patricia McInerney ruled that Hall could stay but Marimow had to come back.

The forces of Norcross quickly came out with guns blazing. In an aggressive statement in which they said they'd appeal, they warned the ruling would mean "paralysis" at the Inquirer, dismissed Marimow as a lame duck and threw in a reference to Phillips as Katz's "girlfriend." (I asked spokesman Daniel Fee Monday if the Norcross group had anything else to say, and he said no.)

It's clear that besides the Philly guy thing, part of Marimow's determination to stay on is to block his rivals from having their way with the paper. "What really matters," he says, "is that the Inquirer be in the hands of people of journalistic integrity. That's more important than whether I'm there."

But is it even possible to function in such a poisonous atmosphere, with an owner and a boss so inimical to your reign? "My intention is to do the best possible job we can do in print and on the Web, It's my fervent hope the owners can resolve their differences." Good luck with that. He adds, correctly, "The readers suffer when there's a fractious relationship among owners."

Another possibility, of course, is for one side to buy out the other. Easier said than done, given that Norcross and Katz are powerful, strong-willed people who have shown no inclination to back down.

That's why the Katz/Marimow camp is said to be considering the possibility of going to court to dissolve the ownership agreement on the grounds that there is an insurmountable impasse. (Ya think?) The idea would be to have the company put up for sale. If it ended up with the papers, the group is thinking about converting the company into a non-profit.

However it plays out, one thing is obvious: The status quo is untenable. And it's the people of the Philadelphia region who are paying the price.