There are seven suburban counties in the Philadelphia region: Delaware, Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester. Much of what is important to the residents of these counties is not covered by the Inquirer. This includes road construction, municipal council meetings, elections, recreation, and entertainment. Some of the broader issues such as the large number of municipalities and school boards in NJ do get covered, but the real local issues do not. For example: the realignment of route 29 through Collegeville, the 202 bypass in Montgomery, the extension of the Schuylkill River Bike Trail in Chester County, local election issues, and many other newsworthy events. Much of these are covered by the dozen or so local newspapers such as the Pottstown Mercury and the Burlington County News. Unfortunately, few of us can afford to subscribe to two newspapers at once. Because I subscribe to the Inquirer, I know more about corruption in the BRT than I know about the issues at my borough council.

I propose a news sharing arrangement between the Inquirer and the local papers. The Inquirer is good at International, National, State and wide regional news while the local papers are good at local news. Suppose the Inquirer had a suburban section once or twice a week and carried articles about major road construction, municipal council meetings, etc. These would be written by reporters from the local newspapers. They would get a byline and their newspaper would be credited. In exchange, the Inquirer would allow some of its international/national/state articles to be published in the local papers with the appropriate credit. This would be a win-win situation for the Inquirer and the local papers. The Inquirer would get better local news coverage from reporters that are close to the local events, and the local newspapers would get better international/national/state coverage. Additionally, local reporters would get wider exposure and a boost to their careers. Both sets of newspapers would get better overall coverage and perhaps they could stem the loss of subscribers.