Inquirer co-owners Lewis Katz and H.F.
"Gerry" Lenfest backed out of a tentative deal to settle their
dispute with co-owner George Norcross III over control of the newspaper's
parent company, a Newspaper Guild official said Wednesday.
"You have misled me, lied to me and attempted
to cast doubt on my credibility," wrote Bill Ross, executive director of
the union, in an open letter to Lenfest.
Officially, the Guild, the largest employee union
at the media company, is neutral in the feud, but Ross had offered himself as a
mediator to try to broker a settlement among the men.
A lawsuit by Katz and Lenfest against Norcross and
the other partners in Interstate General Media to overturn the firing of
Inquirer Editor William K. Marimow is scheduled for a hearing next Wednesday
before Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Patricia A. McInerney.
Two union sources said the statement issued by
Ross was not approved in advance by the executive board of the guild,
consisting of officers elected by the membership. He alone signed the letter,
which was distributed to guild members by email shortly before 1 p.m.
Ross said he had discussed a settlement proposal
with all sides last week that would involve Katz and Norcross each appointing
one member to a new board of directors, with Lenfest appointing a tie-breaking
third member. Under the proposed deal, that board would hire a new publisher
for the company and a new editor for The Inquirer, Ross said. He added in the
statement that Marimow would not be reinstated.
"After we spoke I approached Lewis [Katz]
with the idea and he also understood what I would convey to George
[Norcross]," Ross wrote.
"Once I did so, and confirmed that the
majority owners saw this overture as a positive basis for settlement
discussion, you both changed your minds," Ross said. "You told me you
were emboldened by Judge McInerney's decision to hear the case in Philadelphia
and you backed off your settlement talks and denied ever indicating you would
sell your shares and also referred to a scenario in which Marimow did not
return to the Inquirer as a deal breaker. You both ... acted as though I had
concocted this idea out of thin air."
The Guild represents 550 employees in the
newsrooms of The Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com and in the
advertising, circulation and finance offices of the company.
Ross's open letter came after an email message
Wednesday morning to all IGM employees from Norcross and co-owner William
Hankowsky, who is aligned with him, describing their vision for the company.
They wrote that their motivation is to save the
business, which has lost millions in the last decade and preserve the newspapers,
which have declined in circulation over the long term.
"Let's try to make some changes," the
e-mail said. "Let's see if any changes work and we can stop the revenue
decline and job losses here at this company. Let's figure out a way to have
more people buy the Inquirer every day and on Sundays, buy the Daily News every
day, advertise in both papers, monetize the websites and advertise on the
websites.
"That's all we're trying to do."
In his letter to Lenfest, Ross blasted Katz as
having no vision for the future of IGM.
"Through conversations with Lewis it has
become clear that his only plan for the company is to waste money on legal fees
to bring his friend Bill Marimow back to a position in which many of my
members, as well as industry observers, feel he is not equipped for," Ross
said.
Source: Philly.com
No comments:
Post a Comment