New McClatchy/KR Chief in Washington Promises Changes (less natl. news?)

[Newsjock]

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002197131

McClatchy Washington Bureau Chief David Westphal, whose staff will nearly quadruple when it merges with the acclaimed Knight Ridder D.C. bureau after McClatchy’s purchase of the chain, said the new combined bureau may seek to add more regional reporting and increased Web activity.

... Speaking just a day after the announcement that McClatchy would buy Knight Ridder for $4.5 billion, Westphal praised Knight Ridder’s Washington operation that boasts 29 regional and national reporters compared to McClatchy’s 11 scribes. He cited the Knight Ridder staff’s heralded reporting since 2001 raising questions about Iraq WMDs, war coverage from Baghdad, and an exhaustive review of Samuel Alito’s 311 past court opinions prior to his Supreme Court nomination.

“I go in with the impression that the Knight Ridder bureau has been a center of journalistic excellence,” Westphal, 58, told E&P. “I don’t enter with an assumption that it needs tremendous course changes. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be course changes. It is not like the ground beneath newspapers is still. It is fast-changing and that has to include the bureaus.”

... McClatchy, which has only 12 daily newspapers prior to the Knight Ridder purchase, keeps eight regional writers in its Washington bureau, along with just three national writers. “It is a regional reporting bureau,” said Westphal, who has served as bureau chief since 1998. “We believe in the importance and utility of reporting in a way that is knowledgeable of Washington, but very close to the hometown, hometown values, hometown ethos. Saying what is going on here, but putting in the facts and the needs of what is going on there.”

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[SteppingRazor]

1. I doubt you'll see much change in KR's national news...

When it comes down to it, McClatchy's actually a better company than Knight Ridder, in terms of fair, impartial and in-depth journalism. It's one of the best media companies out there today. That said, I certainly don't think you'll see an increase in national news either. Study after study has shown that most people get their local news from a newspaper, but their national news from another source. Given that, it's likely that papers will focus on local news.

[Newsjock]

2. Except ...

... when is the last time that any of McClatchy's national reporting made its own headlines?

No question that McClatchy does good journalism ... but they've generally not done anything like what made KR's Washington bureau famous -- and I fear that part of the KR world may be minimized now. That, for watchers of the national scene, could be a very bad outcome.

[SteppingRazor]

4. Yes, but...

You have to remember that McClatchy, in buying KR, bought a company twice its own size -- that's why you don't hear much about McClatchy. Also, just nine years ago, McClatchy was half the size it is today, before buying Cowles Media in 1997. So, the reason you don't here about McClatchy national news is that, quite simply, until 1997, there wasn't any. The company doubled in size upon the purchase of Cowles, and is now more than doubling in size with the purchase of KR. I don't necessarily disagree with you -- it remains to be seen just what McClatchy will do now that it has big-time papers like the Miami Herald. But I'm adopting a wait-and-see stance for now. I'm cautiously optimistic.

[KoKo]

5. Many of us are not happy with the direction the

Raleigh News & Observer took after the McClatchy buy out. It's pretty much in the pocket of area big business. Rarely does investigative stories. Pumps the localy Christian Fundies and Real Estate Interests. Ignored the huge legilative action that activists took in getting a Verified Paper Ballot Bill enacted (reporters who were biased in favor of the Touch Screen Voting Machines were placed on the story) and no amount of contacting the reporters to inform them of another side...seemed to change their coverage.

The paper before the buyout was a delight. Now it takes feeds from the WaPo and NYT's even about local issues and politicians. Hopefully they will use Knight-Ridder feeds and dump their AP and NYT's WaPo influence.

It would seem logical that Knight-Ridder will have the most influence since it's a case of a "small fish" buying a large one...but in many cases this has resulted in layoffs and the small fish dominating.(I'm thinking of AOL 's purchase of Time-Warner) In this topsy turvey Bush world not much good ever comes from actions one would think would be positive.

With the buyout McClatchy owns both the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer. Both serving the two larges population counties in NC. That's a shame right there....

[zbdent]

3. The local RWers are hoping that the Akron Beacon Journal's

"left-wing slant" will be eliminated . . . :grr:

blah blah blah liberal media bias blah blah blah

[newswolf56]

6. This is the death of the last good outfit in American journalism...

(and I don't doubt for a second that is one of the major motives behind the purchase) -- that is, how and why a 12-paper midget suddenly acquires the financial power to buy a chain the size and quality of Knight-Ridder.

McClatchy is the most venomously anti-union of all the media monopolies, maintaining a special division within its management structure that does nothing but bust unions and root out and fires all pro-union employees.

It is also by far the most hopelessly pedestrian, shackling its reporters with story quotas (precisely intended to prohibit investigate work and guarantee against enterprise stories) to make certain they remain constantly under micro-management.

And -- wholly unlike K-R -- it operates from the notion common to all other U.S. newspaper monopolies: that the function of editors and reporters is merely to fill the spaces between the advertisements -- with what it doesn't matter (as long as it's not controversial enough to upset the advertisers).

I know: I live in a McClatchy town -- a town where the first thing McClatchy did after it bought in was start making war on unions, both at the paper and elsewhere.