What nonprofit ownership means for Philadelphia’s top newspapers

[Commentary] At a ceremony replete with invocations of Joseph Pulitzer’s endowment of his eponymous prizes, ownership of Philadelphia’s (PA) top newspapers was formally turned over to a nonprofit institute created to safeguard local control and institutionalize grant-funded journalism at the outlets. The move offers no immediate solution to the business struggles facing all metro newspapers, and early reactions about whether it was likely to spur meaningful innovation were mixed. But it should, at a minimum, provide a measure of stability at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and Philly.com, which have been plagued by a series of ownership changes in recent years. And while the arrangement has some rough parallels in the industry, it also amounts to an experiment with a unique ownership structure for local media—major papers operating under the auspices of a leading community foundation.