Still meeting the new boss

Idaho Statesman Holding Co is Sold

By Shea Andersen, 3-13-06

They don't mess around out there on the coasts: from New York, the word comes that the nation's second largest newspaper publishing company, Knight-Ridder, has been sold to a rival newspaper company, McClatchy. The sale price: $4.5 billion.

Naturally, this means the Idaho Statesman has changed hands, for the second time in the last year.

Lordy knows what this all means. Today's Statesman quotes its publisher Mike Petrak saying what needs to be said: "...this is a growing, vibrant market that needs a good newspaper, and I and the staff intend to keep providing that on behalf of our readers and advertisers."

The news, with analysis (and the possibility of further sales) as it burbles in, after the jump.

I'm following the lead of Lou Alexander, and trucking towards these links:

The Statesman story linked above had the speculation (absolutely correct) of the sale.

But the New York Times now has the definitive: Click here for that.

Their zinger:
"McClatchy is a dolphin swallowing a small whale," said Chuck Richard, an analyst at Outsell Inc., a research firm for the information industry.

McClatchy, as some may know, began its newspapering with the Sacramento Bee. The Knight-Ridder guys ran, until today, the San Jose Mercury News, which has been hunting this story like few others and provided the wire corpus of the Statesman story above.

The Updates:

First, the Idaho Statesman won't be sold off. Yet. The San Jose Mercury News has the odd misfortune of breaking news about its own fate in this updated story from their business desk.

The papers to be sold are:

The San Jose-Mercury News and Contra Costa Times, also the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Akron Beacon Journal, the Wilkes Barre Times Leader, the Aberdeen American News, the Grand Forks Herald, the Ft. Wayne News-Sentinal, the Monterey Herald, and the Deluth News and Tribune.

The Wall Street Journal has more, but not much for those of us who don't subscribe. But with that link you can, Web connection willing, watch a CNBC broadcast.

We watch so you don't have to: in an interview with CNBC, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt had balm for the soul of local newspaper folks, methinks.

Here's the nut: asked about layoffs at the remaining papers, Pruitt said nix.

"We have no plans for layoffs at the newspapers," Pruitt said. "We plan to maintain, sustain and further the journalism at these newspapers."

With that, I say, go ahead and take that coffee break, local reporters.

Need more? Here's some of why Pruitt gets lots of respect from reporters under his helm:

"We're committed to good journalism being good business," he said. But the anchor continued to press him about the potential downfalls of the newspaper industry, but Pruitt held off, and his reasoning could be tailored to the Boise market.

"Ultimately ... we're competing locally," Pruitt said. "Our local competitors have fragmenting audiences. We're the last mass medium."

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