Rieder: Philanthropist determined to save Philly papers

WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — Gerry Lenfest never anticipated that, at age 84, he'd find himself the sole owner of a beleaguered media company and publisher of its three news outlets, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com.

But thanks to a bizarre, hard-to-believe-Harry chain of events, that's precisely where the billionaire businessman and philanthropist is.

And he's having the time of his life.

"I'm motivated and excited," Lenfest told me in a wide-ranging interview in the offices of The Lenfest Group here in the Philly suburbs. "I've given over a billion dollars away to charitable causes, but nothing I've done has the importance of saving these newspapers."

Lenfest made his fortune in cable television, but when he talks about the value of newspapers, he exhibits the passion of the most deeply committed print lifer.

"Every great city needs a great newspaper," he says. "What would Philadelphia be without the investigative reporting and the newsgathering of the Inquirer?" Noting that the paper's newsroom — while much diminished since the glory days decades ago under the great editor Gene Roberts — still has about 220 journalists, he adds, "What radio station has over 200 journalists? What TV station? What website?"

Owning the papers also represents a closing of the circle for Lenfest. Back in the 1960s he served as associate counsel for Walter S. Annenberg's Triangle Publications, which at the time owned the Inquirer and Daily News as well as TV Guide. Annenberg, later the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, sold Lenfest the cable system that started him on his road to riches. And, Lenfest kids, Annenberg prepared him for his current publisher gigs by, against all odds, naming him publisher of Seventeen magazine.

"I was one of Walter's lieutenants," Lenfest says, "and I ended up owning his flagship properties."

Lenfest thinks it's vital to place the media properties on a sound financial footing, no easy prospect at a time when the newspaper industry has been thoroughly disrupted by the digital maelstrom. He sees the latest round of union negotiations as critical to the papers' survival. If he gets the outcome he's looking for, Lenfest is ready to commit to the papers for at least another three years. But he knows that outcome is hardly a gimme.

The company is offering buyouts to veteran employees, and may turn to layoffs if it doesn't get as many as it seeks. Lenfest praises the Star Tribune of Minneapolis for resisting onerous staff cuts to keep quality high, and says he wants to do the same. But, he says, it's necessary to "reposition the staff to meet the challenges of the future" — a phenomenon taking place at newspapers across the country, including USA TODAY.

Lenfest's improbable journey to media mogul began in 2012. Former Philadelphia mayor and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell was trying to put together a group to buy the struggling dailies, which changed hands four times in six years, from the hedge funds that owned them. There was a big public outcry that having a player like Fast Eddie involved in owning the news outlets would cripple their independence.

So Rendell, who took himself out of the picture, asked Lenfest to join the ownership group with a $10 million investment and serve as a chairman of the board. In a year, Lenfest could get his money back and step down,

He didn't, because he was determined to fix the dysfunctional ownership arrangement at Interstate General Media, the papers' parent company. All major decisions had to be agreed to by the two managing partners, former New Jersey Nets owner Lewis Katz and South Jersey political power George Norcross. And these two guys couldn't agree on what day of the week it was.

The untenable situation blew up when Inquirer Publisher Bob Hall, presumably at Norcross' instigation, fired Inquirer Editor Bill Marimow. Lenfest and Katz successfully went to court to get Marimow, a highly regarded editor who had resisted some of Norcross' initiatives, reinstated.

At an auction to end the standoff, Lenfest and Katz prevailed over Norcross and his allies, much to everyone's amazement, including Lenfest's and Katz's. The two men had formed a powerful bond during the turbulent times at the papers, and they were looking forward to running the company together. But just days after the auction, Katz died in a plane crash.

"All of a sudden," Lenfest says, "I was alone."

So how is my old friend and fellow Philly guy Marimow doing? I asked Lenfest. "He's doing great. We love Bill," he responded, adding with a twinkle that he and Katz "spent over a million dollars getting his job back."

Some Lenfest nuggets:

•He'd like to put philly.com behind a paywall, but he's not ready to do so yet. He says the website, which he believes featured far too much "trash" when it was dominated by the Norcross faction, has improved dramatically and will continue to do so.

•He says the perpetually endangered Daily News, a gritty urban tab that complements the more traditional Inquirer, remains an important part of his future plans.

•He's not a micromanaging publisher: "I don't look over their shoulder and tell them what to do." He'll step down from his publisher role after the union negotiations.

So is he a digital guy? Lenfest shakes his head no. He's got an iPad and a cellphone, sure, "but I'm not like the little kids that play on it. I stumble along."

And he's clearly excited about his current role. "I've been given this opportunity I didn't anticipate to help perpetuate the newspapers in Philadelphia that are so critical to the life of the community," he says. "I'm having a great time."

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