Another first class hypocrite would be former District Attorney Seth Williams.
While Seth was busy prosecuting criminals, he was involved in a variety of lawlessness and mendacity, including stealing money meant to fund his mother’s nursing home.
Our nominee for the Hypocrite Hall of Shame is the late multi-millionaire philanthropist Walter Annenberg .
His Honor Ambassador Annenberg endowed two schools of journalism at University of Pennsylvania and at USC on the West Coast. We presume both prestigious schools emphasis journalism that is unbiased, fair and trustworthy.
In other words, virtues that are just the opposite of the Inquirer under the ownership of the esteemed Walter Annenberg.
The newspaper was a tool Annenberg employed to attack and smear those he disliked and boost those he approved - such as Richard Nixon and Frank Rizzo.
Imagine a newspaper that refused to cover the city’s NBA basketball team.
For reasons now lost to history, Annenberg ruled there would be no coverage of the Philadelphia Warriors on his sport pages.
To many it seemed like vindictive whims, when Annenberg ruled some names would never appear in his Inquirer, including Imogene Coca, Zsa Zsa Gabor and singer Dinah Shore. Consumer crusader Ralph Nader was also persona non grata in the Inquirer.
Annenberg’s most vicious smear campaign was against Milton Shapp, who eventually became Pennsylvania’s governor despite countless negative Inquirer stories.
The most outrageous smear was when an Inquirer reporter asked Shapp if he had been hospitalized for mental illness. Of course, he had not, but the next day’s front page headline read: Shapp Denies Mental Institution.”
The Inquirer under Annenberg included bookies operating in the building and a top investigative reporter who used his skills for blackmail and extortion.
So, we recognize media mogul Walter Annenberg for a place of honor in the Hall of Shame. His name lives on at schools dedicated to the best principles of journalism – schools endowed by a man who embodied the worst principles of media ownership.