Israeli Start Up Rumble Responsible for Inquirer's New Mobile Interface

One of the more interesting presentations at today's Philadelphia-Israeli Chamber of Commerce Mobile Conference was made by Israeli start up Rumble. I was surprised to discover that they created the  new mobile interface, which has been well received, for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News.

Co-founder and CEO Al. E. Azoulay claims the platform is so easy to use that newspapers will start building a mobile audience within hours of downloading.

The company has some big backers, including the Knight Foundation. The former publisher of the Inquirer, Gregory Osberg, recently joined the advisory board.

Casey,Meehan, Brady Performing Stand-up For A Good Cause

Senator Casey during his turn to solicit laughs from the audience. 

In this era of bitter partisan politics, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky achieves the impossible. For 22 years, he is organized a candidate's comedy night at Finnegan's Wake that is a must show for those running for political office in southeastern Pennsylvania. Throughout the years, the event, which is held at Finnegan's Wake has raised more than $475,000 for the Variety Club, a charity that helps disabled children. In a gracious gesture, Congressman Brady promised to solicit all the candidates to make sure this year's total would bump the event's total dollars raised to over $500,000.

Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky

Senator Bob Casey, his challenger Tom Smith, Congressmen Mike Fitzpatrick and Robert Mansfield were among the politicos that performed stand up. Congressmen Jim Gerlach, Chakkah Fattah, and Allyson Schwartz, whose stand in said she could not come because she was busy getting a mani pedi with Nancy Pelosi and Deborah Wasserman Schultz, were the only candidates that did not to attend this year.



This year, I have to declare two winners for best stand-up routine. John Featherman, a Republican Congressional candidate running against incumbent Bob Brady, received the most laughs for his routine about his marriage to a Chinese woman. When he asked for a sexual position that slang users refer to by number on the night of his fourth wedding anniversary, he joked that "his wife asked why he wanted chicken and broccoli."

Bykofsky with congressional candidate Kathy Bookvar.

The award for the best G rated comedic routine goes to Republican Congressman Pat Meehan. He asked, "Why did Anthony Wiener have to apologize to Bill Clinton over a sex scandal? Was it patent infringement?"

He also good-naturedly ribbed his challenger George Badey, who is a proud Philadelphia Mummer, that J. Edgar Hoover has already done the men in "rouge, red lipstick and tight pants with sequins" dance.

Badey returned the favor by poking fun at Meehan's prep school education. He joked, "When Meehan graduated, he got a horse. When I got graduated, I got a picture of a horse."

Several of the candidates used props in their routine. The Republican candidate for Attorney General David Freed has been criticized for being too close to Governor Tom Corbett so naturally he "took" a call from the Governor during his routine. Republican Senatorial Candidate Tom Smith, who grew up on a farm, prepared an elaborate slide show to introduce himself to the audience. It included a photo-shopped picture of he and his wife in the famous Grant Wood painting "American Gothic". Indian American Manan Travedi, who described his sixth Congressional District as between Philadelphia and fracking, promised not to make any ethnic jokes and then proceeded to answer a call as if he was working at Dell customer service.

Professional comedian Joe Conklin suggested that the dancers from Club Revue were there so that "Congressman Brady would not have the biggest boobs in the room"

Despite his hard work to organize the night, Bykofsky, who is no spring chicken, was the butt of a few jokes. Congressional candidate Badey cracked, "Wasn't Bykofsky the reporter that broke the story about the crack in the Liberty Bell?"

For one night, it seemed that everyone forget the political issues that divide them and united to make the audience laugh. We need more nights like this.

Philadelphia Daily News Bunch Hypocritical On Al Jazeera

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News is so worried about the potential editorial influence of a powerful investor group bidding for his own paper that he has signed a petition calling for editorial independence. Yet, he evinces none of the same concern about Al Jazeera English, which is owned by the royal family of Qatar and headed by one of their princes. He wrote yesterday on his popular blog Attywood that it is time for Comcast to offer Al Jazeera English.

I asked Will Bunch by twitter and email exactly how many hours of Al Jazeera English he had actually watched. He refused to answer that question. He tweeted,  Al-Jazeera offered REAL coverage of "Arab Spring" -- w/ no Whitney Houston cutaways. U.S. viewers deserve chance to see 

Lack of Whitney Houston cutaways are not a good enough reason to recommend a channel that promulgates hate and lionizes terrorist. His editors at the Daily News should be monitoring his posts to see that he writes about things that he possesses actual knowledge of. Bunch has confided to me in the past that his editors do not check his posts before they go live.

Living in Israel, I was able to watch many hours of Al Jazeera because all the cable companies there offer the station in their lineup. I would often turn on the station after seeing a terrorist attack on innocent civilians with my own eyes. Their reports were rife with inaccuracies and proselytism of the Palestinian cause.

Leading Israel advocate Mort Klein, who has appeared on the network, recalls his experience in an article I wrote for the Jewish Exponent. He said, "Every time that I have been on the network, the moderator is anti-Israel. Usually, I appear in a panel of three, and the other two guests are anti-Israel."

Reporting on Israel is not the only case of Al Jazeera's distorted reporting. They rarely broadcast stories that reflect Arabs in a bad light. When CBS reporter Lara Logan was viciously attacked in Tahrir Square in Egypt, the channel refused to report on it. Al Anstey, the head of Al Jazeera English disingenuously argued at the time, "Many others were hurt during the demonstrations and the network couldn't cover everyone that was hurt."


My reporter friends at the website WhoWhatWhy unsuccessfully tried to interest the channel in their headline grabbing story about the ties between the Saudi Royal Family and the 9/11 hijackers. No producer from Al Jazeera even called back to get more information. 


Since the Qatari royal family was backing the Libyan rebels, Al Jazeera never once questioned the humanitarian value of the NATO strike in Libya. Comedy Central's Jon Stewart did. 

Comcast does need to diversify the channels in its lineup, but Al Jazeera is not the way.

Rendell Not Buying Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News

Former Governor Rendell had assembled an investor group to buy Philadelphia Media Network, which consists of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com from hedge funds Alden Global and Angelo Gordon. His investor group included Flyers owner Ed Snider, South Jersey political boss George Norcross, parking lot king and former Nets owner Lewis Katz. In short, all the people who make news in the city.

Many complained that the auction process was rigged. Evercore Partners, the investment banking house running the auction, would not allow Raymond and Ronald Perelman and an investor group headed by real estate mogul Bart Blatstein to participate.

Just ran into former Governor Ed Rendell on Locust St near 15th. He said, "I don't think that we will buying." His thin skinned buyers group probably could not take the negative publicity on their bid from Buzz Bissinger, the New York Times, and others. Bissinger, who compared Rendell to Randolph Hearst, worried about the journalistic conflicts of interest with such an investor group. The New York highlighted a censored a blog post about rival bids on Philly.com.

The real villains in this deal are not Ed Rendell and his buddies but Randall Smith of Alden Global and John Angelo and Mike Gordon of Angelo Gordon. They refused to allow philanthropist Raymond Perelmann to buy the papers two years ago even though they knew that they were not interested in being long term owners of the paper. They can not even justify their refusal on economic grounds. The papers are worth less today than two years. One of the nation's finest regional newspapers, which was the only check on a corrupt political culture, was destroyed by their inflated egos.