We have often mocked what I have sometimes referred to as The Philadelphia Enquirer for its journolism and wholly #woke kowtowing to the left, but it doesn’t matter: no matter how low you bow and scrape, you just can’t bow low enough or rend your garments and gnash your teeth in anguish enough to satisfy the left.
by Tauhid Chappell | Tuesday, May 30, 2023
The “Buildings Matter, Too” headline was published June 2, 2020 on page A12 of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Click to enlarge.
Free Press joins its allies within the Journalism Accountability Watchdog Network (J.A.W.N.) in giving a vote of “no confidence” to The Philadelphia Inquirer after the city’s paper of record failed to address numerous issues around diversity, equity, inclusion and coverage of Philly’s diverse communities.The letter, signed by Free Press Program Manager Tauhid Chappell and the presidents of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists (PABJ), the Asian American Journalism Association’s Philadelphia chapter (AAJA-P) and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Philadelphia chapter (NAHJ-P), comes at a time when J.A.W.N. has been working to hold Philadelphia news outlets accountable for their treatment of both journalists of color and communities of color.
Much of this work has centered on pushing The Philadelphia Inquirer to dismantle the structural racism that has long defined the organization. In 2020 — following the mass uprisings responding to the murder of George Floyd — the paper published an article with the callous headline “Buildings Matter Too.” In the wake of the public backlash, the Inquirer claimed that it wanted to become an antiracist institution. But the paper has failed to make the necessary shifts.
Earlier this month, organizers of J.A.W.N met with Inquirer Publisher and CEO Lisa Hughes and Inquirer board member Keith Leaphart to discuss several DEI concerns and commitments that the paper has neglected to address with our organizations following the “Buildings Matter Too” fiasco.
Then Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski, a twenty year veteran if the Inquirer, wrote a catchy headline, “Buildings Matter, Too,” playing off the #BlackLivesMatter meme, and he was fired resigned over it.
Philadelphia was torn by riots following the unfortunate death while resisting arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled previously convicted violent felon George Floyd in Minneapolis. Just a month ago, the Inky bowed low to the rioters, describing a riot-burned-out area as:
The site’s previous buildings — housing a McDonald’s restaurant, a Vans shoe store, and a Dr. Martens shoe store — were ransacked and set ablaze on the night of May 30, 2020, following a day of somber demonstrations condemning the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“(F)ollowing a day of somber demonstrations”? Is that like “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests”?
Over the course of two years, Hughes and Inquirer leadership refused to meet with J.A.W.N. as a collective to address the ongoing failure of the Inquirer’s DEI initiatives. Hughes even went so far as to send an email to Inquirer staff warning of “voices outside of our organization looking to downplay and disregard the hard work that goes on each and every day at The Inquirer” — describing the complaints from J.A.W.N. as “demands, threats, and belittlement.”
These failures have prompted multiple journalists of color to leave the newsroom, which until recently employed zero Black male reporters outside of its sports desk. There continues to be public distrust of the Inquirer‘s coverage of police, gun violence and public safety. There is also a lack of accessible opportunities for the public to hold the Inquirer accountable over its failures to take the steps needed to become an “antiracist” newsroom. We came to this meeting hoping to have an honest conversation where the Inquirer would acknowledge the harm it has inflicted.
There most certainly is an accessible opportunity for the public to hold the newspaper accountable, and it is being held accountable in just that way: people can stop buying the newspaper. The circulation figures I could find for the Inky show that the newspaper is just a fifth of the size it was thirty years ago.
Of course, for the people at Free Press, who actually want “reparations” from media organizations, that really won’t work, because the Inquirer just doesn’t have that many ‘readers of color’ in the city. With a newsstand price of $2.95 for a weekday issue, assuming you can find a newsstand selling it, a lot of people who might otherwise have picked up a copy no longer will. For black readers in the city, the Philadelphia Tribune, which concentrates on the black community, is a lot less expensive, at $1.25 a copy at the newsstand.
However, there’s a significant problem for readers of the Inquirer: a lot of them really can’t read! But, if they can read, the Inky is running a subscription special! Just click on the image.
These low literacy and retention rates have wide-ranging consequences. Philadelphia ranks 92nd out of the 100 largest U.S. cities in educational attainment. 17.4% of adult Philadelphians—an estimated 225,000—do not have a high school diploma, compared to 10.5 percent in Pennsylvania at large, and only 28% of Philadelphians 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, ahead of only Cleveland and Detroit, and 6% behind the national average.
The literacy crisis in Philadelphia’s public schools produces adults who struggle to read. Philadelphia ranks at the bottom among large American cities in reading proficiency; according to recent federal data, roughly 22 percent of Philadelphians aged 16 and older lack the most basic literacy skills. 52% of Philadelphia’s adults are functionally illiterate, and 67% are low-literate, reading at a sixth- to eighth-grade level. Almost 40% of adult Philadelphians struggle to fill out a job application, to read doctors’ instructions on their medicines, and to help with their children’s homework.
That’s the #woke left for you! We have already noted how ‘progressive’ Helen Gym Flaherty ran, unsuccessfully, for the Democratic mayoral nomination, touting the strong support of the teachers’ union, and bragged about how she saved Edward T Steel Elementary School from ‘going charter.’ The school, still public, is ranked 1,205th out of 1,607 Pennsylvania elementary schools, with 1% of students which scored at or above the proficient level for their grade in math, and 8% scored at or above that level in reading.
Unfortunately, the meeting left J.A.W.N. members feeling that the Inquirer has no intention in working in partnership with the coalition in meaningful and transformative ways. Hughes and Leaphart refused to acknowledge concerns raised by our respective memberships (which include past and current journalists of color at the paper). And the two showed no interest in honoring the formal agreements it had made with PABJ and Free Press. “Let the past stay in the past,” Hughes and Leaphart repeatedly said.
As a result, the Journalism Accountability Watchdog Network has decided to give a vote of “no confidence” in the Inquirer leadership, asserting that the paper does not have a genuine interest in reaching shared grounds to address ongoing DEI concerns that J.A.W.N., and members of the public, have consistently raised over the years. Given this collective vote of “no confidence,” in good conscience J.A.W.N. cannot recommend that anyone seek out opportunities at the Inquirer. This includes fellowship, internship, apprenticeship or hiring initiatives, especially since the company has failed to partner with J.A.W.N. on such initiatives in the past.
So, the Free Press and JAWN complain that the Inky has not hired enough ‘journalists of color,’ yet they also recommend against potential ‘journalists of color’ seeking employment at the newspaper. `
With the conclusion of all of this, Free Press looks forward to working with more community groups and other like-minded organizations in Philly that truly value community engagement, centering community-information needs and producing sound journalism that accurately reflects the city’s diversity.
What, exactly, does the ‘Free Press’ want in journalism from the Inquirer, when it comes to “producing sound journalism that accurately reflects the city’s diversity”? The problem is that the vast majority of the violent crime, shootings, and homicides occurs in the city’s heavily black neighborhoods, and the newspaper does what it can to soft-peddle that fact. As much as Published Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes and Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar would like it to be different, if the paper accurately reported the news from Strawberry Mansion and North Philadelphia, it would be reporting much more heavily on the crime and violence in those areas.
By now, Miss Hughes and Mr Escobar ought to have learned the truth: there’s nothing that they could do short of firing every white employee, giving all of their jobs to ‘people of color,’ resigning themselves, and leaving to the people the wokesters would designate millions of dollars in ‘reparations’ that would satisfy the left, and even there, I’m not certain it would be enough.
No, that’s not a typo in the headline; I spelled journolism exactly as I had intended, reflecting the liberal bias of the newspaper.The episode plunged one of America’s most ubiquitous brands into crisis.
