Pruitt says future is bright

The chief executive of The McClatchy Co. told shareholders Wednesday that the future looks bright for the newspaper chain in spite of current problems.

Chairman and CEO Gary Pruitt, in an address to the Sacramento publisher's annual shareholder meeting, acknowledged McClatchy's recent decline in advertising revenue but said the company is "well positioned to emerge among the strongest and most successful news companies in the changing media landscape."

McClatchy, is the nation's third largest newspaper chain. Like other publishers, it has struggled in the past year or so as advertising and circulation have migrated to the Internet and other media, depressing profits and share price.

He defended McClatchy's takeover of Knight Ridder Inc. and subsequent sale of 13 papers, including the company's largest paper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis. Although those deals were "complex and sometimes unpopular," they made McClatchy stronger, he said.

If not for those deals, the company's operating cash flow -- a measure of profitability -- would have slipped 16.3 percent in the first eight months following last June's Knight Ridder acquisition. Instead, operating cash flow fell just 0.3 percent, he said.

Pruitt said McClatchy is shaving costs and making strategic alliances on the Internet, including two deals with Yahoo Inc. that will drive more traffic to the Web sites of McClatchy's papers.

Including Web traffic, McClatchy's audience is growing, he said. "That is certainly not the profile of a dying business," he said.

McClatchy stock was up 5 cents a share, to $30.06, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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[Source: Dale Kasler in the Sacramento Bee]