Gary has no regrets, he tells E&P

The following was included in a report by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher on the ASNE convention in Washington, DC:

A year after brokering the biggest newspaper deal of 2006, Gary Pruitt has no regrets. In fact, the chairman of the McClatchy Company says his chain would have been worse off during the recent economic downturn of newspapers if it had not taken over Knight Ridder.

“I don’t regret doing it because our performance was actually better,” Pruitt told E&P during McClatchy’s Tuesday night reception at the ASNE conference inside the J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington. “Our advertising revenue performance and cash flow would have been worse had we not done the deal. The Knight Ridder papers actually improved our performance, advertising revenue and cash flow. Both are improved for our having done the deal.”

If the deal had not occurred, “we still would have suffered ad revenue decline, only worse.”

He noted, however, that the last few months of poor newspaper economics did not help. “Unfortunately, the timing of the deal corresponded almost precisely with the downturn in advertising,” Pruitt said. “A lot of people confuse the deal wit the environment.”

Pruitt spoke as guests drank up at the open bar and noshed on egg rolls, tuna ahi and dumplings, all courtesy of McClatchy. During remarks to the crowd, Pruitt joked that McClatchy, which has thrown such a party two years in a row at ASNE, at $50,000 a pop, would decline in 2008. “Next year, another company can do it,” he said with a smile.

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