Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Resigns

Robert J. Rosenthal resigned abruptly Tuesday as executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the latest in a series of high-level departures that have rocked the Knight Ridder Inc. newspaper chain in a time of shrinking profits and declining circulation.

Walker Lundy, 58, editor since 1990 of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, a Knight Ridder paper, will replace Rosenthal. Lundy began meeting with staff members Tuesday and will officially take over Nov. 26.

Rosenthal, 53, a 22-year Inquirer veteran, said he was leaving after longstanding disagreements with Publisher Bob Hall over strategies for increasing readership.

Rosenthal is the second top Knight Ridder editor to leave since the company announced a 10% staff reduction this year in response to diminished advertising revenues. In July, Martin Baron left the executive editorship of the Miami Herald to become editor of the Boston Globe. Jay Harris, publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, resigned in March with a blast at Knight Ridder executives for giving “greater priority” to higher profit margins than to maintaining high journalistic quality.

Hall said he and Rosenthal had talked for almost a year about their different views on how local news should be covered. Finally, on Tuesday, he told a packed--and stunned--newsroom, he had “reached the conclusion that it’s best for the Inquirer” that Rosenthal be replaced.

Hall and Rosenthal said the decision was mutual and neither was angry. But Hall said, “I wanted more local news, faster, and he wanted less, slower. I wanted more news and information relevant to our readers’ lives. Our research showed that’s what people wanted.”

Rosenthal, executive editor of the Inquirer since 1998, denied that he wanted less local news but said he had struggled with “the balance--providing consistent, relevant local news ... while maintaining a regional paper in one of the biggest markets in America.”

The Inquirer’s daily circulation dropped 8.8% for the six months ended Sept. 30, the second-largest decline among the nation’s 50 biggest newspapers, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation. Since . 1990, Inquirer circulation has plunged almost 30% to 365,154.

Rosenthal, highly respected by his staff, was cheered lustily as he left the newsroom Tuesday.

“Rosey was a very, very strong advocate for local news,” said Hank Klibanoff, deputy managing editor.

Others at the Inquirer blamed circulation losses on cutbacks in the circulation department, an increase in the home delivery price, the combining of some local editions, deadline changes that resulted in the loss of late sports scores to many readers, and severe reduction in the newsroom staff.

“We’ve said that to do suburban coverage right, we need additional resources, but Knight Ridder has cut our staff,” columnist Tom Ferrick said.

A study by the Newspaper Guild of Philadelphia showed that since January 2000, the newsroom staff has declined 23%, from 628 to 485. Hall challenged those figures, saying the newsroom now has a staff of “about 530 to 540.”

Last spring, the Inquirer combined three local Pennsylvania sections into one, angering many readers in those communities, said Matt Golas, the metropolitan editor.

Arguments over how best to cover local news are not new at the Inquirer. Eugene Roberts, executive editor of the paper from 1972 to 1990, said the “seeds of the argument over local news coverage were part of my decision to leave.”

The Inquirer competes with a dozen suburban dailies, and to do so successfully “would be very expensive,” Roberts said. Instead of investing more, he said, Knight Ridder “kept cutting. It’s all journalism by the numbers, journalism done in the name of business but with a very shortsighted approach to business.”

The Inquirer won 17 Pulitzer Prizes under Roberts. The departure of Rosenthal marks “the definite end of the Roberts era” at the paper, said Jim Naughton, one of Roberts’ longtime deputies at the Inquirer and now president of the Poynter Institute in Florida.

Rosenthal’s top assistant, Managing Editor Butch Ward, left the paper in June during the second of two buyouts at the Inquirer.

Naughton, who hired Rosenthal for his first Inquirer job in 1979, said he couldn’t understand how the company could “drive out two editors of that quality in such a short period of time.”

Knight Ridder spokesmen declined to comment on Rosenthal’s departure.

Shares of the company rose $1.94 to close Tuesday at $58.81 on the New York Stock Exchange amid a broad rally.