Dec 5 - As the owners of the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain seek to sell, staffers at many of the news outlet’s 32 daily newspapers may face unresolved labor issues while Knight Ridder attempts to make itself more attractive to potential buyers. The prospect has been discussed in union publications since the company first indicated it might open up to bids. It came to the fore last week...
A decade ago, as Knight Ridder Chairman Tony Ridder hosted an annual meeting with his newspapers' editors, he was asked what concerned him most about the business, what kept him awake at night. "Electronic classifieds," Ridder replied, according to two people who were present. His response struck some as arcane. But in 2005, that answer carries significantly more meaning, as newspapers see both...
Viscount Rothermere’s decision to put 97 Northcliffe titles on the market has been likened to selling off the family silver. But as the rise of the internet threatens to take the shine off the heirlooms, he must find new ways to deliver. Report by Dominic Rushe and Mark Kleinman As they filed into the oak-panelled Kensington boardroom of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) last Tuesday, the mood...
THAT old fox Rupert Murdoch has frightened the chickens again. He recently barked that the newspaper industry’s "rivers of gold" by which he meant the revenues from classified advertising were drying up. Panic has ensued in some henhouses. In Media File recently, I wrote about how Knight Ridder, the second largest newspaper chain in the United States, had been forced to put itself up for sale...
Promised cuts came Thursday to the Chicago Tribune, with a net loss of 28 editorial positions, the end of its stand-alone WomanNews section and the demise of a legendary local news service. New City News Service, the descendant of the City News Bureau that sent a young Mike Royko and generations of other cub reporters onto Chicago's streets to chronicle crimes and fires, wound up in the morgue...
Newsday yesterday dismissed 72 employees from across the newspaper and announced that 40 additional vacant jobs will be eliminated. No "news gathering personnel" were affected by yesterday's announcement, according to a memo to employees from publisher Timothy P. Knight, issued yesterday afternoon. The move comes a month after the newsroom staff was reduced by 59 people, largely through buyouts....
The Morning Call will end publication of Chronicle Newspapers, its chain of 11 weekly community papers, as part of cost-cutting measures that include layoffs in other departments, officials said Thursday. The newspaper will permanently lay off about 5 percent of its workers, spokeswoman Vicki Mayk said. That amounts to almost 50 people based on The Morning Call's employment of 950. he paper, one...
The newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror has started a new round of job cuts, which could see some 750 workers axed at its regional and national titles, in a further sign that the industry is struggling. The news follows the shock announcement earlier this week that Daily Mail & General Trust was bailing out of the regional newspaper industry with the sale of its Northcliffe division. News...
A group of private equity firms, including two that own a significant stake in the Orange County Register, is mulling over a bid for newspaper chain Knight Ridder Inc. Blackstone Group, Providence Equity Partners Inc. and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. are working on a possible offer for the San Jose-based company, three people with knowledge of the discussions with Knight Ridder said Thursday. It...
At Google, we think business guru Peter Drucker well understood how to manage the new breed of "knowledge workers." After all, Drucker invented the term in 1959. He says knowledge workers believe they are paid to be effective, not to work 9 to 5, and that smart businesses will "strip away everything that gets in their knowledge workers' way." Those that succeed will attract the best performers...
