NEW YORK (JTA) — The former publisher and current managing editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent have been hired by a New York media businessman to cover city and state politics in Pennsylvania’s state capital.
Tom Allon, who runs a publication called City & State in New York, plans to form a similar venture to cover government in Harrisburg and local politics across Pennsylvania, according to Philly.com. Allon has hired David Alpher, who resigned more than a year ago as publisher of the Jewish Exponent, and Greg Salisbury, currently its managing editor, to launch the project.
Last June, the Philadelphia Jewish federation, which owns the Exponent, announced that it was outsourcing the running of the paper to Mid-Atlantic Media, a Baltimore-area company that publishes the Baltimore Jewish Times, the Washington Jewish Week and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. Much of the news and production staff immediately were laid off.
Allon, who is Jewish, is a former head of Manhattan Publishing and the West Side Spirit weekly, and his investors reportedly include Michael Steinhardt, the Jewish mega-philanthropist and New York businessman.
Allon says his New York venture, which employs some 30 people and covers Albany, is profitable. He plans to hire 10 more employees this spring to run his Pennsylvania project, which will include a daily news compilation and a monthly magazine, according to Philly.com. The website also noted that Allon is also friends with Jared Kushner, publisher of the New York Observer and the Jewish son-in-law of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
“I am incredibly excited to be covering politics in depth on a state and local level,” Salisbury, who will be editor of the new site, told JTA.
