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March 14, 2006
McClatchy-Knight Ridder -- Enhancing Quality Journalism? Please.
My darkest day as a journalist was in 1984 or 1985, when Knight Ridder folded The Charlotte News. The afternoon News had been losing circulation, and the transaction made financial sense.
But the reason it was a dark day for me is that I was assigned to write the story of the The News’ demise for The Observer. I quoted the then-publisher, Rolfe Neill, as saying the outcome would be better news coverage for our readers.
I knew then and I knew now that that was a whopper. No way would the News’ death result in better coverage. It was a scrappy paper that had kept The Observer on its toes for years.
Now we read that the McClatchey newspaper chain is going to swallow Knight Ridder, then regurgitate the big-city papers in low-growth markets. They’ll probably end up with a second-rate chain like Gannett.
According to one McClatchy paper, the Raleigh News & Obsever, the McClatchy CEO, Gary Pruitt, says “the purchase should enhance the quality of journalism.”
Please. This is more about survival than quality. Maybe we should give Pruitt and McClatchey the benefit of the doubt. After all, McClatchy is making a bet on newspapers. Only McClatchy was willing to place a bet on Knight Ridder.
But you would have to be pretty naive to think that achieving efficiencies that Wall Street will demand of this deal will enhance the quality of journalism anywhere.
Posted Mar 14 2006 @ 07:20 AM