McClatchy to Buy Knight Ridder for $4.5B

[gatorboy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060313/ap_on_bi_ge/knight_ridder_mcclatchy

EW YORK - The McClatchy Co. has reached a deal to buy Knight Ridder Inc., the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock, the companies announced Monday. McClatchy will also assume about $2 billion in Knight Ridder's debt.

The deal will add several major newspapers to McClatchy's portfolio, including The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. McClatchy's papers include The Sacramento Bee and The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.

At the same time, McClatchy plans to sell 12 of Knight Ridder's 32 newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Daily News and the San Jose Mercury News, saying that those papers don't fit the company's longstanding criteria of buying newspapers in growing markets.
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I know nothing of the papers already in McClatchy's portfolio. Anyone here know which way they lean?

[mmonk]

1. The News and Observer

has been a good paper. However, since McClatchy bought it, it has been less informative concerning world news and Dwayne Powell's cartoons have been cut way back for more middle of the road to partly conservative syndicted cartoonists.

[blm]

2. Actually, gator, this is one of the best case scenarios. McClatchy is

a slightly conservative group, but conservative in the traditional sense.

Unless they get infiltrated by Bush loyalists buying up shares (as happened to KR) and forced to sell, they will probably allow KnightRidder's formidable investigative team in DC to continue doing its job as one of the only news bureaus holding Bush's White House accountable.

[Kolesar]

3. Going to split off the Akron Beacon-Journal, John Knight's flagship paper

..that was the start of the K-R newspaper chain. They are busting up the most outspoken newspaper chain: the first papers to report the truth from the Iraq War. The BJ is one of the best papers in Ohio. I hope they don't sell the Beacon Journal off to the Bush gang at Carlyle Group of those other militarist bastards in the Blackstone group.

In addition to the papers in Philadelphia, San Jose, and St. Paul, McClatchy also intends to sell the Akron Beacon Journal in Ohio; the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.; the Aberdeen American News in South Dakota; the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota; The News-Sentinel in Ft. Wayne, Indiana; the Contra Costa Times and The Monterey County Herald in California and the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota.

[Kolesar]

4. CEO of McClatchy hounded Gary Condit, D-CA, to resign

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002157437

More recently, Pruitt gave his blessing, if not his input, to some tough front-page editorials in The Fresno Bee and The Modesto Bee — McClatchy's two central California papers — that implored U.S. Rep. Gary Condit (who hails from that area) to resign because, they said, he had violated the public's trust in the Chandra Levy matter. The editorials attracted national attention for their boldness in calling for the head of a moderate Democrat who long had won the backing of the moderately Democratic Bees.

"I did not play a role in changing the editorials or working with to come up with their position on Condit's resignation," says the boyish Pruitt, who rarely interferes with editorial issues. "However, I do think handled it well. I think the editorials were good."

The Condit editorials are typical of both McClatchy tradition and Pruitt's management style: Hire solid, skilled people — and give them a lot of rope.

Editors in Condit country "know best what kind of paper is appropriate for people in Modesto, not me here in Sacramento," Pruitt explains in his spotless, modern-appointed, blue-hued office in California's sleepy, tree-lined capital city, headquarters of the McClatchy Co. "That doesn't mean I'm excluded or that other people here at corporate are. We all participate."

Dick LeGrand, The Modesto Bee's opinion page editor, says that, while he agonized over the details of the Condit editorial, he did not look over his shoulder. "I've worked for McClatchy since 1969," he says, "and I've never had any doubt about their support and backing of any journalistic activities."

[mmonk]

5. The News and Observer is currently head hunting

Black, a Democrat in our legislature connected to the lottery. People get a steady dose of "corrupt Democrats" in our legislature, but not much on the corruption of the administration in Washington. People who read the N&O as an only source are in many ways uninformed.