Come Nov. 2, Philly might be a city without a newspaper.
The company that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com was sold today for $105 million.
What is significant about the sale — which closes Oct. 23 — is that the new owners will have serious latitude in a corporate reorganization. There are no strings attached to their take-over.
The Teamsters unions — the groups that physically print and distribute the newspapers — are notoriously intractable and have seemed more concerned with bloated benefits packages than the survival of their corporate parent.
But this sale means the new owners could force major union concessions in order to get the company’s finances in order. The cost to print and distribute the paper represents an enormous portion of the operating costs of the company.
So the owners could go so far as to force a shut-down of the newspapers to force union agreement. In other words, Philadelphia might be a city without news — in a print sense — just when it’s time for voters to hit the polling booth for Election Day.
How this scenario could impact turnout or awareness is, of course, speculation at this point, but it’s a story Battle ‘10 continues to follow, as it could have a major impact on already struggling Democrats Dan Onorato and Joe Sestak.