Paper Torn

The editorial staff at the Chestnut Hill Local clashes with the board that controls its fate.

by Andrew McGill

Michael T. Regan HILL PEOPLE: In December, one of editor Pete Mazzaccaro's employees at the Local was fired by the Chestnut Hill Community Association.

Jimmy Pack Jr. is in his George Costanza days. He's waking up late, teaching part-time at Penn State-Abington, writing a nonfiction novel about his travels along Route 66.

But he's not doing what he loves — working at his old job as a production assistant at the Chestnut Hill Local, a weekly newspaper headquartered in the thick of Philadelphia's affluent northwest. An 11-year veteran and jack-of-all-trades, Pack shot photos, designed pages and occasionally wrote columns for the community paper well-regarded for its coverage of the neighborhood.

He also had a big mouth, one fond of criticizing the Chestnut Hill Community Association, the quasi-governmental organization that fills in for City Council on the Hill and publishes the Local as a public service. Once last fall, outside of a Community Association board meeting, he told off an association member who had proposed cuts to the paper. And as Pack vacationed this December with his family, CHCA's board of directors abruptly voted in a closed executive session to fire him, without any consultation with him or the newspaper's staff.

Never before, Local editor Pete Mazzaccaro said, has an employee been dismissed through such executive action. In a newsroom of only a few small offices, it's been hard for the close-knit staff to take.

"Weekly news staffs are like a family — we have our squabbles, but in the end we stick together," he said, leaning forward over the desk in his cramped office, cluttered with Local memorabilia and Keystone Press Awards. He's 34 years old and already graying. "You get close, and when something happens like with Jimmy, it's really tough to keep your composure."

Mazzaccaro's proud of what he and his staff produce — 7,000 bundles of newsprint a week, stocked with stories ranging from personality profiles to sports coverage to the occasional business exposé, sold from little orange honor boxes dotting Germantown Avenue — but it's getting harder and harder, he says. Most newspapers have a publisher; Mazzaccaro has a 45-member board designed to discuss zoning and streetlights, not news.

It also doesn't help that the paper's losing money. Chestnut Hill isn't immune to economic reality. By latest count, board members say there are more than 20 shuttered storefronts on Germantown Avenue. That's cut into ad revenue and circulation and the young editor says the CHCA board has trampled over his staff for months in its rush to stem the losses. He's been given ultimatums, he says, when he really just needs input.

Then came Pack's firing, and an all-out war between the paper and its owners. Mazzaccaro himself was nearly a casualty last month; the board narrowly voted down a measure to remove the editor, with some board members reportedly walking out in disgust, according to Mazzaccaro and board members who asked not to be named because the meeting was private. It's clear to both sides: The schism is rapidly widening.

"They paint us out to be little high school graduates who don't know what we're doing," said production manager Robyn John, who's been with the paper for seven years. "We just have a feeling that they're going to fire whoever they want, and that they don't follow any protocol. The newspaper business is going downhill and we're doing what we can to survive. At the same time, we're getting interference from people on the board who think they have better ideas."

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Many CHCA board members don't see it quite the same way. The paper has had definite failings, some say, particularly in its editorial decisions. Board member Carol Cope can recall a recent critical story that entirely mistook one realty agency for another, a mistake that never should have gone to press.

"If the paper is going to publish stories that include accusations, it needs to be very sure of its facts," she said. "My concern is that it is often not sure of its facts. If you're going to be an investigative paper, you need chops for that — it's like putting a lightweight into a heavyweight bout."

The relationship wasn't always this acrimonious. The Local's history stretches back to the wild days of blight and bad attitudes on Germantown Avenue 50 years ago, when a local hardware store owner proposed an association that would handle zoning and other community matters internally in Chestnut Hill. Along with this new organization, he founded the predecessor to today's Local, an outlet for community members to discuss the issues of the week.

To this day, the paper strives to print every letter it receives, making for a lengthy and often fiery opinion page. News coverage tends to focus on community happenings and profiles of Chestnut Hill residents, but the Local also been a careful watchdog of the CHCA and local business.

The Local's changed, and so has the CHCA. Longtime members say the association's board has come to be increasingly dominated by area businessmen, and former editors say they've felt the difference — in recent years, the small newsweekly has felt more pressure to quiet down controversial coverage and be more discerning in printing incendiary letters. And as the paper's financial condition worsens, the interference is only getting worse, Mazzaccaro said.

Tempers last reached the breaking point in 2005, when then-editor James Sturdivant resigned under fire from the association for what he said were the stances he took in editorials, especially an opinion piece he wrote analyzing the fractured relationship between the paper and the CHCA. The Local staff responded to his departure with a signed statement, printed in the newspaper: "

Board members can see the staff is upset — but that doesn't mean they're on the same page. Ask Pamela Learned, a CHCA member and owner of a public relations company: She recently left the association board because she felt the Local's stances — especially in the reporting of Pack's firing — put her and the organization at legal risk. The attitudes in the newsroom aren't helping the situation, she said.

"I went into the production room, and there was this whiteboard that had "We want Jimmy Pack back" written all over it," she said. "There's all this little stuff everywhere that contributes to negative workspace — I don't think there's a clear sense on who their employer is."

That said, she agrees with Mazzaccaro on one thing: A newspaper can't be run by 45 people. She'd like to see the size of the board reduced and their influence tempered, so the staff can have more breathing room and independence. After all, she said, the Local is the most important product the CHCA puts out.

Operational controversies aside, CHCA member and ophthalmologist George Spaeth has one question: Where does freedom of the press come in?

"The Local is not a voice box of the Community Association — it's supposed to be critical of the Community Association," he said. A former board member, he resigned after Pack's firing. "We all need people looking at us critically and saying, 'There's something here that strikes me as funny.' I don't see that as an attack, or anything to shy away from."

Pack declined to comment on his termination, although coworkers confirm he is pursuing legal action.

Despite all that — and a recent letter from board executives informing him he is on thin ice — the editor is optimistic. The Local has so much potential to grow, Mazzaccaro said. He wants to run coverage right down the avenue into Mt. Airy and Germantown, filling the holes in communities without a voice. But he can't do that while getting orders from 45 bosses who he says know nothing about his business, and he plans to say so at the tonight's CHCA meeting.

"If you solve all this crap, we could get so much done," he said. "But every Tuesday we get the paper out the door, I say, 'How did we do this?'"

(editorial@citypaper.net)