I see by the papers that 5 p.m. today is the deadline for potential buyers to submit bids to purchase the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News. If I could dig up the $600 million asking price, those papers would be mine.
As a recovering journalist (printer's ink is an addiction, like cocaine; once it's in the blood, the hunger never completely dissipates), I've always cherished the notion of owning my own newspaper. Granted, the two Philly papers exceed the dimensions of my wildest fantasies, but a girl can dream, can't she? Owning not one but two newspapers on Ben Franklin's old stomping ground would be the journalistic equivalent of, say, piloting Air Force One or being President of Harvard.
Back in my teens, when my classmates were aching to be the next Donna Summer, I wanted nothing more than to be the next Jim Squires. At the time he was editor of the Orlando Sentinel, my hometown newspaper, but then when he moved on to edit the Chicago Tribune, I nearly swooned with envy. Years later after he'd moved from journalism to politics, I finally met Jim Squires and confessed my adolescent worship; we had a good chuckle and traded stories of the news biz. I was a small-town newspaper editor at the time but we spoke the same language, a language I rarely get a chance to speak since I left the news biz in '98.
Now here's my chance to re-enter the world of headlines and deadlines--but first I need to come up with the $600 million. How much does a soul sell for on e-bay these days?
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