An alleged illegal taping incident has once again been thrust into the spotlight by publisher Philadelphia Newspapers, but no one else seems to think it deserves all the attention.

The company is asking a judge to let it move forward with a potentially pricey investigation into allegations that lender CIT Group illegally tape-recorded a meeting in the office of Philadelphia Newspapers Chief Executive Brian Tierney.

“I’ve got to get to the bottom of the illegal taping,” he implored viewers of a Feb. 22 video produced for the one-year anniversary of the company’s bankruptcy filing. (Cut to a shadowy reenactment of someone hiding a tape recorder behind a stack of manila folders.)

Tierney says a felony was committed that day in mid-November 2008. But several parties – including a bankruptcy judge – don’t seem to share his fervor over the incident. A judge last year denied the company’s request to hire a law firm to dig deeper into the matter, saying that there was little chance the investigation would benefit the bankruptcy estate. And Philadelphia Newspapers’ most recent bid to kick off the investigation, filed earlier this month, was met with strong resistance from the company’s lenders and unsecured creditors.

“Not only has there been no showing that the prosecution of any subsequent litigation will assist in achieving any of the goals of a Chapter 11 reorganization, but all of the creditors who could potentially benefit from such litigation oppose it,” an attorney for the committee of unsecured creditors wrote in a letter to the Philadelphia bankruptcy court.

Still, Tierney insists that despite appearances to the contrary, the lenders know the taping a key issue in the case. “They say it’s a molehill,” he says. “But they guard it like it’s Fort Knox.”