Gannett to Take a Look at Knight Ridder

NEW YORK - Gannett Co. would take a "hard look" at any potential acquisition opportunities, including Knight Ridder Inc., a major newspaper company that has been forced by its largest shareholders to explore a sale, Gannett CEO Craig Dubow told an investor group Wednesday.

Dubow, speaking at an investor conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston, said the company would carefully consider any acquisition opportunity but would only proceed if it was in the best economic interest of its shareholders.

Gannett, which is based in McLean, Va., is the nation's biggest newspaper publisher with 99 daily newspapers, including USA Today, the largest circulation daily in the country. It also operates 21 television stations and its subsidiary Newsquest is the second-largest regional newspaper publisher in the United Kingdom.

San Jose, Calif.-based Knight Ridder publishes The Miami Herald, the San Jose Mercury News and 30 other newspapers.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051207/ap_on_bi_ge/gannett_outlook

I can't believe stockholders control the news business. The press is only free if it makes a profit! :grr:

I thought our form of media, commercial, was so great and now look. The constraints on the content driven by soap sales is not very pretty.
BBC is for the sake of discussion; owned by the govenment. Does BBC have a PRAVDA reputation? It has it's own allegiances but I think until recently BBC news has had a pretty good reputation for great investigational reporting.
I for one think commercial media is part of the death of our democracy.

:shrug:

Not because government-owned is necessarily good, but the media concentrated in the hands of a few is just as bad as it being controlled by a corrupt government.

Knight-Ridder stock can be purchased by anyone.

Some might dispute that. Namely, those that barely make enough to feed their family, let alone buy stock, and even if they manage that, have a few paltry shares compared with the brokerage houses and uber-wealthy that control enough voting interest to run things despite how you feel.

At least with government everyone is supposed to be guaranteed one vote and one vote only.

So they're going to try to legitimize him after the fact. What a bunch of desperate shit heads.

When the two biggest newspaper conglomerates talk about merging together, especially in this time where there's already concern of journalistic standards fading due to centralization of media.

You're right it would be a shame. I still wonder if one could talk someone like Ted Turner into buying controlling interest in it and turning it around to grow in other areas.

news service in the country--the only one that has done honest, investigative reporting on Iraq--and because there ought to be a law against anybody owning "99 newspapers and USA Today." Corporate news monopolies are the single most destructive thing that has happened to our democracy, besides Diebold and ES&S gaining control of the election system with "trade secret," proprietary software, and, arguably, the takeover of our election system occurred BECAUSE OF the lapdogism and lack of journalistic vigilance of our war profiteering corporate news monopolies.

If you have some "save our democracy" money in your investment pot, invest in Knight-Ridder!

... Can anyone buy shares? What if we pitched-in and tried!?!

Still, I've witnessed a HUGE corp. under Fed protection in a NY Fed court snub earnest larger offers, yet the firm ended-up handed over to a corp from Uruguay, where *'s uncle was then-time Ambassador.

Wondering how someone learns whom stockholders are, or were?

There are 67.22 million shares.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=KRI

:kick:

in some locations - the Tallahassee Democrat was one of those exchanged - from Knight Ridder to Gannett. So far, I'm not impressed with the changes they've made. Tallahassee is a blue oasis up there in the red desert of North Florida.

We are sunk.

After working for them in Arizona as a newspaper reporter. And I will hate to see them take over my hometown newspaper, The Miami Herald. Thank god I never got a job there.

If the one in AZ was anything like the one in ID, they treated their employees like shit and paid them as little as they could get away with while the publisher raked in big bonuses for keeping costs low and profits high. I wasn't a reporter (worked in advertising), but I vowed shortly after getting that job that I'd never work for any fucking newspaper ever again.

They were also really bad in the runup to sElection 2000. They'd print stories alleging that Gore was an irredeemable liar without retracting those stories when it was later revealed that the things he'd said were, in fact, true. Meanwhile, Bush got a free pass on things he said that anyone who was halfway paying attention knew were provably false. Not surprisingly, the candidate the paper came out and endorsed in 2000 was Bush.

Sorry for the rant. :hi: I just get a little wound up thinking about what a suck-ass job that was.

Edit: shpelling.

Yeah, they treated us the same in Arizona. We would be lucky if we got a 3 percent each year. And they endorsed Bush twice. And in the democratic primary, they endorsed Lieberman.

I also vowed never to work for newspapers again.

They had such a bad reputation as an employer that I was actually asked by someone at a company where I was doing freelance work on the side, "So is it true that once you've worked for The Idaho Statesman no one else in town will hire you?" I think I said something like, "Good God, I hope not!"

They endorsed Bush back in 2000, and then shockingly enough for a red state paper, they half-heartedly endorsed Kerry last year. I was more than a little surprised.

It's funny (and more than a little sad), but I have yet to meet a fellow former Gannett employee who didn't say, "You worked for Gannett, too? Man, they suck!"

It is one of the few papers left that still prints the truth occasionally.

"has been forced by its largest shareholders to explore a sale"

I wonder who those shareholders are?

My beloved worked for them in circulation, and hated every rotten, chauvinistic, overworked, underpaid minute. They REQUIRED her to show up at 7AM and bitched if she left before 6PM. Which meant 4:30 AM till 7PM. All for about $580 gross salary a week. Made her go out and shovel boxes out in the bitter cold, but the men sat on their fat asses. And one Sunday a week she had to make sure that her area got their deliveries. Made her go out to collect $2.40 past due accounts while spending an hour and a gallon of gas.

Fucking morons all.

away from Unions and now we don't have them when we need them.

Hopefully your "worked for them" means she got out.... Meanwhile, my spouse gives 5am to 7pm daily to corporate financial IT services and takes weekly rotation for pager services without so much as comp time now and then.

As for Gannon - I got tired of regurgitated AP articles and US jingoism so I cancelled. Thank God for the Internets.

Peace.

They are scum, pure scum. They think they can hold costs by bleeding their employees as horses are bled for snake venom. And the pricks who claim to be "editors" are nothing more than glorified library workers.

Their circulation continues to drop. I have convinced my IT accounts that newspaper advertising is dead. The people who read newspapers have already bought their LAST car or truck, and their kids use computers as they used the TV.

They would be better off throwing the money spent on the Daily Record off the roof (on a promotion) rather than giving it to those bastards.

for sure. I've also been very impressed with Knight Ridder's coverage of the war in Iraq; they seem to be worlds beyond the rest of the wire services in terms of accountability and an independent examination of what's truly going on the Middle East. That would surely suffer if Gannett took over. Media consolidation blows.