The Fight for the Future of Philadelphia’s Newspapers

As I worked on this story, I was urged by multiple staff members at the Inquirer to look into specific allegations they raised about Norcross’s supposed bad behavior.

In March 2013, for example, Bob Hall complained to Bill Marimow about a story involving a possible conflict of interest for Judge Seamus McCaffery. Hall questioned whether the story should be played on page one. (In fact, the piece, by veteran reporter Craig McCoy, sparked an FBI investigation.)

Hall calls any claim that Norcross put him up to it “complete bullshit.” But the rumors are triggered by circumstance: McCaffery is a major figure in Philadelphia’s Democratic Party, and Norcross is the boss of South Jersey’s Democratic Party; the beleaguered Inquirer staff needs no more evidence than this to start talking.

I also looked into a contract Norcross’s insurance agency, Conner Strong & Buckelew, got with the Pennsylvania Turnpike. To those on Team Marimow, the Turnpike deal catches Shady George in action, leveraging his new presence in Pennsylvania, his ownership of the Inquirer and Tom Corbett’s new column into a government contract. But none of the timing supports this theory. The contract was awarded in July 2012, six months before Corbett and Norcross ever met and 10 months before the Governor started his column. Besides that, Turnpike contracts are subject to a strong level of scrutiny.

Is Norcross seeking to undermine the paper’s investigative reporting, or divest it of the opinion pages that sometimes sway voters? The better question might be this: Would he even need to?

I started receiving tips from Inquirer staff members precisely because they weren’t going to pursue stories about Norcross themselves. All of the new owners took a pledge not to interfere. But they interfered the day they bought the company. What staffer is going to walk into the Inquirer newsroom and say, “Hey: Let’s investigate our owners!”?

George Norcross III now owns an empire that spans the insurance industry, hospitals, politics and publishing. And the lesson here is that he doesn’t actually have to intimidate anyone to be intimidating.

ON OCTOBER 7TH, Bob Hall’s secretary sent an email to Bill Marimow. Subject: “Catch Up With Bob.”

When Marimow arrived, Hall soon brought him up to speed—with a show-stopping sentence: “I’m terminating your employment,” he said.

“Have you talked to all the owners?” Marimow asked. “Did Lewis Katz support this?”

Hall, by this time, had a legal opinion declaring he could fire Marimow without the management committee’s approval. But Marimow knew about the operating agreement, left Hall’s office, and called Katz.

A TRIBE OF reporters gathered in Courtroom 630 in City Hall over the course of four days of testimony this fall, watching as an increasingly animated Lewis Katz, a plaintiff, kvetched and rubbed incessantly at the deep worry lines of his face.

Following Marimow’s firing, Katz and Gerry Lenfest brought suit against Norcross and the other owners. Katz’s courtroom antics made great theater. And during a long last-ditch effort to negotiate some resolution, he and his attorneys shuttled repeatedly from the courtroom to the judge’s chambers. Speaking loudly, Katz even declared, “I don’t want to go back there,” his wary eyes looking at the door to the judge’s office.

On the other side of the room, George Norcross looked comparatively giddy, like a guest at a cocktail party.

Katz tapped Dick Sprague to lead his legal team—the attorney of choice among the city’s most powerful citizens—and Sprague pursued the case on legal grounds. But Norcross’s attorneys waged a political campaign. They embarrassed Nancy Phillips, grilling her on what attorney Robert Heim called the “fabrication” she helped invent for who had hired Marimow in the first place. It was for “public relations,” Phillips offered.

“But this statement was a fabrication,” Heim tried again, forcing Phillips to offer a concession: “This is, as I explained, yes.”

Katz’s legal team asked for three things: the firing of Hall; the upholding of the company’s operating agreement, which calls for Katz and Norcross to agree on big business decisions, like firing the editor; and, finally, the reinstatement of Marimow.

The suit split the ownership group in two, with three owners joining Norcross while Lenfest sided with Katz. And for what, exactly? Lenfest and Katz thundered from the stand that firing Marimow would do irreparable harm to the Inquirer, but what kind of culture had Marimow really built if the whole place fell apart whenever he walked out the door? Besides, Marimow’s employment agreement only ran through April 2014, while Hall’s contract was due up in December 2013. Were these guys really fighting, this hard, over who would be able to keep his job for a few more months?

In the end, the judge put both men back in their jobs—reasoning that Hall still had a valid contract, but that the firing of Marimow violated Katz’s rights as co-manager.

The ruling set the stage for further legal proceedings: Katz has since petitioned the court to dissolve the company and make its properties available in a public auction. Norcross is arguing that the papers should be auctioned only among the current owners. Both men have vowed to bid in whatever auction occurs. And the newspapers themselves seemed strangely lost in all the tumult—stuck, without a full-time long-term publisher; lacking clarity on who will run the Inquirer newsroom; and without any will to experiment or innovate.

Still, the judge’s ruling did trigger movement of a kind.

Nancy Phillips disappeared from the office after Marimow’s firing. Upon his reinstatement, she arrived, as she always did on Mondays, fronted by an armful of fresh-cut flowers.

Later, the Newspaper Guild complained on behalf of a staffer, alleging that Phillips arranged her blossoms, then walked around the newsroom urging staff to stand and applaud when Marimow returned to his office. (Phillips vigorously denies this.) Given her status as a city editor and an owner’s longtime girlfriend, the guild’s complaint contended, this was like ordering employees to create a fake standing ovation. But the joke is that even if the applause erupted spontaneously, the scene could only represent an illusion: that Marimow could really be the answer when what the Inquirer needs, first, is an ownership group that raises fewer questions.