Thank you from Tony Ridder

From: Ridder, Tony
Sent: Mon 4/17/2006 8:01 PM
To: Publishers - Ridder; Mohr, Tom; SSC All Shared Services Center Staff; Corporate-Miami; Corporate-San Jose; Scholz, Jane
Subject: A note from Tony Ridder

Colleagues,

As many of you know, the Sun Herald was awarded a Gold Medal in Public Service by the Pulitzer Prize Board today. It is the most valued of journalism’s most distinguished prizes.

So many of you across Knight Ridder’s many companies and professions share a piece of this coveted prize because of the role you played in helping to keep the Sun Herald and sunherald.com vital in the critical days and weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated its community.

Editor Stan Tiner said it beautifully in his comments today:

"We knew we were not alone - and indeed our colleagues from every Knight Ridder newspaper from sea to shining sea came over the weeks ahead volunteering to live in the squalor of that unbearable September Mississippi heat to help us provide the information that was necessary for our shattered cities and towns to keep going in those critical days.

"Knight Ridder digital was working feverishly to keep the outside world informed through our joint teams reporting efforts, informing evacuees of the news of their hometowns.

"Not only did Knight Ridder provide a wonderful team of journalists and a support staff that stretched across every division, but employees everywhere dug deep into their own pockets, funds matched by corporate, to send over $600,000 in grant funds that shored the home team.”

I am extremely grateful and appreciative to all Knight Ridder people who supported Biloxi during this crisis. So many gave money to help employees who lost so much. So many spent time there or provided vital support from elsewhere.

We should all join the folks in Biloxi taking great pride in this accomplishment. It’s wonderful recognition of the very important role we play in all our communities. And it’s great validation of what we know to be the caliber of people who make up the Knight Ridder community.

Thank you, and congratulations to all of you.

Tony Ridder