Wandering wonderings of a worrywart

Reading tea leaves is rather tricky, particularly in a scary situation like Gatehouse Media’s $16 million purchase of the BJ and Ohio.com.

But I’ll have a go at it, from the relative safety of 22 years of BJ retirement and 85 years of age. The undertaker might get me before Gatehouse does.

First warning sign: Gatehouse is taking a SHORT-term lease on the 44 E. Exchange Street building, which still is owned by Canadian Black Press.

That means the BJ, down to 165 full-time employees (the newsroom alone had more than that the day I retired in 1996), and without a printing press for years, can move and become a storefront newspaper.

Will editor Bruce Winges keep his job a year or so down the road? New owners like to have their people running the show after the old management shows them the ropes.

More than 60 Gatehouse Media Ohio publications and websites reach more than 4.2 million adults a month in Ohio. So one voice can pretty well tell the citizens what it wants them to know.

Diverse media sites are a good thing for democracy.

Gatehouse will make take-it-or-leave job offers to current Ol’ Blue Walls employees. That sounds like more pay cuts for a group that already has taken financial hits in recent years.

BJ workers have to decide before May whether to accept whatever Gatehouse offers or leave.

Pittsford, N.Y.-based Gatehouse itself emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013 and expanded exponentially to than 140 daily newspapers. In a business sector that has gone from cash cows to survival mode. That can be a house of cards that tumble overnight.

John Knight took his father’s heavily in debt newspaper and grew it into 32 newspapers and 18,000 employees. Ancient, but beloved history.

JSK always felt, and often said, that its people are what made Ol’ Blue Walls and Knight Newspapers great.

Let’s hope the new owners realize that.

Four Pulitzers didn’t happen by accident.

Columnist Bob Dyer, for example, is almost automatic for Ohio Columnist of the Year nearly every year.

Mark J. Price plumbs area history with aplomb.

Paula Schleis, Cheryl Powell, Betty Lin-Fisher, Doug Livingston, Michael Douglas and Katie Byard are assets every newspaper needs.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

I admire the troops; I don't trust management once JSK left the building.

Hopefully, Greathouse won’t go with those who will work the cheapest instead of those who can continue the glory that has been the Beacon Journal for a century or so.

Stay tuned. The cat eventually will be out of the bag.