The Philadelphia Inquirer | Associated Press | WHYY
Judge Patricia A. McInerney of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas will listen to arguments next week about whether a lawsuit among the owners of Philadelphia’s newspapers should be heard in Philadelphia or Delaware.
The lawsuit concerns the firing of former Inquirer Editor Bill Marimow, whose lawyer told reporters “some have chosen to smear.” Among the attendees at the hearing was Dan Biddle, who the Associated Press reports “was among five veteran editors that [Publisher Robert] Hall wanted fired.” Marimow reportedly refused to fire several employees whom Hall wanted gone.
Also there, according to WHYY’s Dave Davies: Steve Seplow, Sharon Wohlmuth and Murray Dubin, as well as “reporters from eight news organizations (none of them TV stations).”
Inquirer co-owners Lewis Katz and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest are represented by attorney Richard Sprague, the newspaper’s Thomas Fitzgerald and David Sell report. The Inquirer in 1996 settled a libel suit Sprague brought regarding an Inquirer story published in 1973. The case had become “a modern Bleak House,” Emilie Lounsberry wrote at the time. The Inquirer was at the time owned by Knight-Ridder. Five groups have owned it since then.
Related: The mess at Philadelphia’s newspapers: A timeline of recent events
Correction: This post originally referred to Sprague with the wrong first name. He is Richard, not Robert.
