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 Monica Yant Kinney — the Inquirer columnist for the Dirty Jerz — goes nuts today on Brian Tierney, who just happens to be the guy who just agreed to buy the paper.
Seems that Tierney, a local PR whiz, didn’t like some columns that Kinney wrote about his buddy Vernon Hill, the owner of Commerce Bank. Kinney begins:
You probably heard I have a new boss. I wonder whether we’ll have lunch soon. Our last meal was so much fun.
The time: late 2002. The place: Ponzio’s. The topic of conversation: my professional interest in Commerce Bank founder Vernon Hill.
I had written a few columns about the man, his Moorestown mansion and business practices, as I might any headline-making captain of industry in the area. [...]
Hill disliked the columns. Only he didn’t tell me to knock it off, personally. Neither did his paid spokesman.
The job of shutting me up fell to Brian Tierney, the local ad man and public-relations whiz who happens to be one of Hill’s dear friends.
At lunch, Tierney made it clear he wasn’t being paid to bully me. This one, he was doing for free.
Oh, but it gets better:
It’s encouraging that the local owners are vowing to invest in the newspaper and promote it, I said. It’s reassuring they’ve publicly pledged not to meddle in editorial matters.
I just hope they realize they bought a newspaper, not a tech stock.
If we do our jobs correctly, we will inevitably aggravate and outrage Tierney, his friends and fellow investors.
Some VIP they know is bound to get caught in a scandal. Someone will get indicted.
Back then, the man complaining about coverage wasn’t also an owner of the paper. We stood up to him.
What will Tierney say the next time one of his friends asks him to have lunch with me? Where will he stand?
Fantastic. Looks like Tierney’s going to get a chance to test that “staying out of the editorial side” pledge right away.
Monica Yant Kinney | Brian Tierney, before the pledge [Inquirer]
Archives: Future of Inquirer/Daliy News
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