Philly newspapers donated to newly created nonprofit

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com has turned over the media company to a nonprofit institute in the hope that a new business model will help them survive the digital age and stanch years of layoffs and losses.

Local philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest, who bought the media company 19 months ago, will give the struggling properties to the newly formed Institute for Journalism in New Media and donate $20 million to endow the enterprise.

"My goal is to ensure that the journalism traditionally provided by the printed newspapers is given a new life and prolonged, while new media formats for its distribution are being developed," Lenfest said today.

He pledged the new endeavor would continue to produce "independent public service journalism and investigative reporting that positively impacts the community, while also creating innovative multimedia content."

The broadsheet Inquirer has won 20 Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in journalism, and the tabloid Daily News has garnered an additional three. Recent awards include architecture critic Inga Saffron's 2014 prize for criticism, the Inquirer's 2012 Public Service award for a series on school violence and a Daily News duo's 2010 investigative prize for stories on rogue Philadelphia drug cops.

Readers will not see any immediate changes, and the company's contracts with its labor unions will remain in force, Lenfest said.

Lenfest sold a cable empire he built to the Comcast Corp. in 2000, leaving him with more money than he knew what to do with, he said.