Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Seattle Weekly reports on Knight Ridder buyout

Kudos to Seattle Weekly's Bill Richards for his insightful piece about the Knight Ridder buyout by the McClatchy Co.

The article provides great insight into the relationship between Knight Ridder and the Blethen family, the joint-operating-agreement between Hearst and The Seattle Times, and potential antitrust questions raised by the McClatchy Co. buyout of Knight Ridder.

Rather than risk violating the "fair use" clause by extensively quoting the article, I have included a link. Click here.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Seattle Times: Locally owned?

"Seattle Times: Locally owned and uniquely Northwest." At least that is what the Blethen family would like you to believe. But, the buyout of Knight Ridder Newspapers by The McClatchy Co. reminds us that it isn't true.

Seth Sutel, an AP Business Writer, reports that The McClatchy Co. will become the proud owner of 49 percent interest in the Seattle Times thanks to $4.5 billion buyout of Knight Ridder

The newspaper empire McClatchy's will have created will be the second largest nationwide in daily circulation. McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said he plans to pay down acquisition debt by selling The Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Jose Mercury-News and 10 other Knight Ridder newspapers.

Sutel wrote:
Those properties don't meet Sacramento-based McClatchy's growth-market criteria -- or in the case of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, compete directly with McClatchy's Star Tribune in neighboring Minneapolis...
Knight Ridder's chairman and CEO Tony Ridder said in a statement Monday the "uncertainty is not over" for employees at the 12 papers McClatchy intends to divest, and "I regret that very much."

Monday, March 6, 2006

Times seeks court transparency

On Sunday, The Seattle Times published its first part of the "Your Courts, Their Secrets" series. It is compelling investigative journalism.

The Seattle Times will be headed to King County Superior Court to unseal many of the wrongfully sealed court cases. The information contained in these files could be vital to the public good. I would like to extend a big basket of appreciation to all the reporters who are working on the series.

Some of them include: Ken Armstrong, Justin Mayo and Steve Miletich