M is for McClatchy & misery

McClatchy, which bought Knight-Ridder at the worst possible time, is the poster child for the newspapers-only struggles in America.

McClatchy paid $4.5 billion for K-R, and its worth plummeted to about a dime on the dollar. 

McClatchy, in an attempt to survive, sold the Beacon Journal to Canadian Dave Black’s Black Press and other papers to various entities.

To read the tale of woe, click on

http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/319315/5-ways-mcclatchy-is-a-model-for-a-new-breed-of-stand-alone-newspaper-companies/  

Evidence that the BJ is not alone in struggling in this Internet age. The newsroom shrank from 250 at my 1996 retirement to about 60 today.

And even management exits are common, the latest being Larry Pantages leaving for the Medina Gazette as managing editor. That never would have happened during John Knight's era. But that is a galaxy far, far away in newspaper history.