Richard Rys from Philadelphia Magazine joins the DL to talk about some of the highlights of his ten years covering the city.

In Part One of the episode we talk about his tenure at Philly Mag and if he has seen a shift from harder news to softer societal content that speaks to suburban living perhaps more than Philadelphians.  If you look through the pages of the magazine, you’ll see that most of the ads are for some pretty high-end outlets so unless your last name is Utley or Burrell (as explained inside the latest issue) you’re probably not as big a target for them if you live in the city. 

We then talk about the fall of newspapers and if he think the situation will engulf magazines at some point.  I hate when people who work for newspapers say that the newspaper industry is dead.  For crying out loud, this is your job.  Do something to fix it.  I know the lowly reporters can’t do as much, but people are making money out there.  I hate the defeatist attitude by newspaper guys.  So we talk to Rich about that with regard to magazines.  On the surface, Philly Mag looks pretty healthy with a 260-page glossfest this month, full of 65-70% advertisements and sponsorships.

For full disclosure, I should mention that my father used to work at Philly Mag in seemingly another lifetime.  Why does that matter?  Well, he started the Best of Philly series, which is now celebrating it’s 35th year running. 

We spin the Best of talk to the back page – Rys’ Exit Interview – to ask what his ‘Best of’ has been for that feature .  We go from Kelly Ripa to David Boreanaz to somehow ending up on Tom Sizemore’s fake schlong.  Yep, that reads right.  And since we do an audio show, we wanted get some insight into how a Q&A like that is put together.  Does he clean up his own questions to make himself sound smarter or funnier?  We know people who have done that, so we ask if it’s an industry trend.

We also announce the list of people you want to know...those who are ducking us. 

We also talk about the timing of the article and if progress (getting to the LCS, World Series) would be good enough for the city, or since we’ve endured SO MANY years of nothingness, do we need the title the trophy and the biggest parade in any city ever.

We spin that to talk about the other two owners in town and who he thinks is the best.  We also ask him our age old ‘next team to win a title’ bet (no, the Soul doesn’t count).

We discuss the upcoming Olympics and how NBC Universal will cover the Games and the issues surrounding China.  

Somehow we end with a conversation about Bruce Dickinson’s cod piece.  Yes, AJ Daulerio is involved.

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