March 31-April 6, 2005

cover story

Wither The People Paper?

by Mike Newall

For months, there has been talk of the Daily News publishing a free daily newspaper to compete with the Metro and fledgling Evening Bulletin. The proposed paper, which has the working title Sizzle, would be arts-and-entertainment heavy, geared toward younger readers and have a circulation area limited mostly to Center City, staffers say.

Other major newspapers, such as the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune, have in recent years launched free dailies to compete with publications like the Metro, but DN editor Michael Days says readers should not expect anything out on the street anytime soon.

"It's still very early to be talking about details," says Days. "We have not committed to anything."

"We are looking at lots of things," adds Joe Natoli, chairman and publisher of the Daily News and Inquirer, which are both owned by the California-based Knight Ridder Newspapers. "But, yes, we are toying around with the idea of launching an additional project as a way of growing readership and advertising."

Knight Ridder has repeatedly come under fire for their management of the two papers. Critics say Knight Ridder's cost-cutting measures have transformed the once Pulitzer Prize powerhouse Inquirer into a glorified AP wire and allowed the Daily News to accumulate so many staffing vacancies and empty desks that its newsroom resembles an Ikea showroom.

Talk of the free daily has also increased the seemingly never-ending speculation that the DN may soon fold. Labor negotiations at the DN are set for 2006. In the past year, seven DN staffers have either died or retired without being replaced. Also, in a March 21 New York Times article, Knight Ridder Chairman Anthony Ridder said he planned to convert three of the company's broadsheets into tabloids, a remark that fueled suspicion that the Inquirer would become Philly's main tabloid and the DN a free daily.

Natoli says that no such plan exists and maintains that any free daily would be part of a growth strategy and would supplement, not replace, the DN.

"There are no plans to fold the Daily News," he says flatly.

Indeed, it would seem costly to fold the tabloid. The paper reportedly managed a 15 percent profit margin last year, but the unexpected February departure of longtime editor Zack Stalberg — just as rumors of the free daily started circulating — raised many eyebrows. Stalberg said Sizzle was not at all a factor in his decision to leave the paper.

"Twenty years at one job is just a long time," he says. "It was time to move on to learn other things."

Still, some DN staffers, like venerable columnist Stu Bykofsky, doubt Sizzle will ever make it to the streets.

"Being as the company is focusing year after year on cutting costs and making our life miserable," says Bykofsky with a laugh, "my prediction is that it'll never happen."