Journalists, especially. The way they thought was so alien to Tierney. Most of them seemed happy to be semi-_anonymous cogs in a big, important machine. To Tierney, this was as counterproductively Old World as the crappy TV cart in the lobby. Journalists weren’t journalists anymore. They were brands. That’s what the New World of media was all about: bytes and brands.

…Tierney suddenly felt his gills and reptilian wings goose pimple a little. He’d lost himself for a moment there. When he looked down ‚Äî 30 yards down ‚Äî and saw these aliens on the ground again, he realized what he was here for, and what it was all about: HE WAS A GIANT JAPANESE GILA MONSTER, and he’d better get down to the business at hand. He had a big yellow Jeep in one claw, and a telephone booth with two people in the other. One of them had to be eaten first.

OK, OK, this article is not that awesome but it comes close. After the jump, we give the play by play on what truly is a massive piece of work, even by Philly Mag’s standards.
NOTE: INCLUDES MOVIE FOOTAGE OF SCARY MONSTERS.

SPECIAL PLAY-BY-PLAY READING GUIDE: JASON FAGONE VERSUS BRIAN TIERNEY VERSUS PHILLYMAG VERSUS THE GILA MONSTER

With a fat red marker, he scribbles a rectangle representing the Philly.com homepage. He calls it “a shopping mall” of content. To attract more shoppers, Tierney wants a localized version of MySpace; to create more content, Tierney wants journalists to use digital cameras and blogs. “I’m not going to force anybody to do it,” he says, although he hopes journalists will want “to play the game up on the balls of their feet and be excited about it and be relevant.” Explaining what he means by “relevant,” Tierney mentions that when the Mel Gibson DUI story broke last summer, both Philly newspapers covered it on inside pages, “but Philly.com should have had that as a bigger thing than just a line, because everybody went to Drudge” — the right-wing gossip site — “or CNN.” The website could use its own journalists who only do Mel-type stories, or who shoot their own “silly and fun” videos, like the one where the guy puts the Mentos candy in the Diet Coke and creates a soda volcano. “I love the smile of our own reporters doing those sorts of things, you know what I mean?”

Idiotic. Not making yourself look good, Bri. I mean, yeah, we get it: You like the Internet, and all of these motherfuckers you’re gonna have to keep laying off do not, or cannot, or can’t figure out how to turn their computers on, or whatever. But no Mentos and Diet Coke, dude, ok? Please? Sometimes I have no idea why we still hang out with you. And also: It’s 2007. Saying anything in the world will be like “a MySpace but with _______” is like wearing a kick-me sign on your nuts. Score Fagone: 1

He shows me a prototype of the ‚ÄúInquirer Express,‚Äù a one-page capsule version of the day‚Äôs top Inky stories, boiled down to short paragraphs in the style of USA Today and ‚Äúsponsored‚Äù with a large ad from Commerce Bank. (”It‚Äôs just a terrific win-win-win.”)

Oh man, you are punking yourself left and right with this Fagone guy. Keep in mind this is the same guy who wrote the book about people who eat hot dogs for a living. Score Fagone: 1

AND NOW THEY DO BATTLE!

Tierney says the CareerBuilder guy ‚Äúwas so rude to us. He kept saying, ‚ÄòTony Ridder, Tony Ridder.‚Äô I said, ‚ÄòWith all due respect … I‚Äôm not Tony Ridder. I‚Äôm a little bit more like Tony Soprano.‚Äô‚Äù Tierney twirls to face his iMac and pops in a CD. It‚Äôs a TV ad promoting one of Tierney‚Äôs new spin-off sites, PhillyCars.com. Over a bass-heavy beat, an Afro‚Äôd rapper sings, ‚ÄúAin‚Äôt nothin‚Äô wrong with a little Philly love.‚Äù Tierney lip-synchs along with the rapper and says, ‚ÄúWe‚Äôre gonna drop a bunch of money on this thing‚Äù ‚Äî $400,000 in the first month alone, for slots on the Sugar Bowl, American Idol and 24.

This paragraph is like the Cleveland Steamer of pop culture references. Score Tierney: 1 PLUS 1 For Fagone On Account Of Using This Quote, Most Likely For Shits And Giggles

Tierney’s ideas strike me as creative, economically sensible, coherent, ambitious — but if the Inky journalists I know could hear this stuff, they’d be scared shitless.

All joking aside, this is a rare moment of clarity in this piece, and also, not for nothing, what we’ve been feeling here and there for a long time now: Everybody wants to hate Tierney, because that is what Philly is sickly, disgustingly all about. And yes, he may be a radical douche, but he’s got the wheel, and he’s got the ideas. All these pasty fuckers at the Inky can moan all they want, but did any of them rise up and affect change at the paper during its long yawn? Score Tierney: 1

[On WPVI's Issues & Answers in the '90s] Once he even compared Bill to Saddam Hussein, saying that Bill’s relationship with special prosecutor Ken Starr was like Saddam’s relationship with weapons inspectors: “You know, what the President has done is in many ways what Saddam Hussein has done, which is to hide and obfuscate for so long that people will get fatigued and not want to keep looking.” On one show, Tierney protested to his fellow panelists, “I’m a noble person.” Then smiled ironically. Then they all burst into laughter.

Dear God, please put this on YouTube TODAY. Score Tierney: 1/ PITY POINT FOR BEING A DOUCHE IN THE ’90s

Tierney is such a pitchman that he will keep selling himself to someone he’s been paid to smear; it doesn’t compute with Tierney that anyone might actually dislike him.

Gee, Journalist, tell us how you really think! Score Fagone: -2/FOUL

THE FIGHTING IS GETTING LOCO!

Tierney is a master of the bluff. Sometimes it‚Äôs a small bluff, specific to a crisis situation ‚Äî for instance, in late February, when I called Tierney to confirm a tip I‚Äôd heard that the Inky‚Äôs next opinion columnist would be Rick Santorum, Tierney objected vehemently. No, he said, giving Santorum a column was just a stray, ‚Äúblue-sky‚Äù idea. Tierney would be more likely to give a column to Dan Rather. (”Seriously.”) He left me with the impression that my tip was bunk. I found out later that the talks were actually pretty far along. Tierney and editorial-page editor Chris Satullo had met with Santorum in person. Tierney lied to back me off a story he wanted to announce on his own terms.

Yes he did, bitch! Hahahaha. Brian Tierney, you are awesome. Score Tierney: 5 POINTS YOU RULE DAWG!

“We did not model in cuts to buy this business,” Tierney said at a press conference on Day One. “We didn’t buy it to cut it.” (Tierney now denies saying this, despite the fact that we have an audiotape of him saying it. In fact, he now says he did model in cuts; whatever you might say about the Visigoths, at least they were honest about wanting to make cuts.)

Love how this dude is just outright pissy now. Score Fagone: -1

Even the lazy journos at the Inky, the ones who never file stories and phone in the ones they do, believe they’re part of something virtuous. Journalists need to believe. They need a leader who lifts their specific morale. If morale goes, the gears grind and squeal.

“Philadelphia Magazine: Dripping With Patronizing Tone Since 1970.” Score Fagone: -1

Still, journos are trying to look on the bright side.

Dude, you have got to be around 8 “journos” past your limit. Knock it the hell off. Score Fagone: -1

Scottoline will also write a column for the Image section, “sort of an Anna Quindlen, Ellen Goodman-type thing,” says Tierney.

Now that’s just funny. Score Tierney: -1

BUT WAIT!

Brian Tierney is the Gene Roberts of today. Just as Roberts reimagined the role of the big-city newspaper for his time, Tierney is doing it for ours. The difference is that Tierney doesn’t need a warehouse floor to demonstrate his idea. He just needs a whiteboard, a flip pad. He’s not deploying an army of honor boxes. He’s not building an engine. He’s dismantling what survives of the old one until there’s nothing too big or too heavy to squeeze through the myriad and modern wires of the era he’s confronted with. His project is necessarily indifferent to the greater good. It has nothing to do with journalism as we know it and treasure it. Tierney is, at heart, a visionary.

WHOA NEEDLE SCRATCHING ACROSS RECORD! What? Are you fucking kidding? This is one of the most bullshit end grafs of all time. What was all that windup about what a douche you thought this guy was? Oh, right: It was PhillyMag boilerplate. Score PhillyMag Editors: 10

FINAL TALLY
FAGONE: -3
TIERNEY: 7
PHILLYMAG: 10
GILA MONSTER: CHECK BACK LATER
PhillyMag: Yes, We Read That Vanity Fair Article Too, Guys
Related: Vanity Fair: That Vanity Fair Article

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 7:44 am.