JustASC

The Philadelphia Inquirer takes the pulse of religious newspapers, including the Phila. Jewish Exponent and the Community Voice (Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties).

Here’s the lede:

They land politely – in mailboxes, not driveways — and deliver their good news gently.

Which is a little tautological — how else do you deliver good news? The trick (and chronic failing) of the ethnic press is that we deliver bad news gently.

My old pal David Portnoe (we were roommates on an Israel program in 1984), editor of the Community Voice, tells the Inky that his paper serves a more important role today than when it was founded in 1941:

“Back then, most of the Jewish population [in South Jersey] was concentrated in certain neighborhoods in Camden,” he said.

With Jews now geographically dispersed, “the paper has become more of a communications tool . . . for holding that sense of community together.”