Gary Pruitt is chairman and CEO of the newspaper chain, The McClatchy Company, which this week acquired another newspaper chain, Knight-Ridder, Inc.
McClatchy owns The Raleigh News & Observer and will acquire in the K-R purchase The Charlotte Observer.
That will give McClatchy ownership of the two largest circulation newspapers in North Carolina.
So naturally, thoughtful Tar Heels are wondering what Pruitt is like and what McClatchy's planning for the two papers.
Well, here’s some of what Pruitt just said in a Mar. 16 Wall Street Journal op-ed :
But what about the future?”(We have the) largest …largest…biggest …greatest …(and) we are capturing that business.”
While it may seem counterintuitive to suppose that a company founded before the advent of electric lights would be a media leader in the age of blogs, podcasts and text messaging, that's exactly what has happened. We certainly have competition from Google and others.
But in each of the communities where we compete, almost every newspaper has the largest news staff, largest sales force, biggest audience and greatest share of advertising in its market. Whether it's on the Internet or off the presses, we are capturing that business.
Doesn’t Pruitt sound just like a top General Motors executive, circa 1955?
BTW – A few things Pruitt didn’t mention.
McClatchy’s stock price has dropped about 5% since the N-R acquisition was announced.
Today, Mar. 17, Yahoo Finance reports: McClatchy’s 52 week high stock price was 76.05. It closed today at 49.60.
Hat Tip: Melanie Sill, The Editor's Blog
2 comments:
I read that, and all I could think of was an old Irish joke about the two drunks walking home.
One decides to take a shortcut across a cemetary and falls into a freshly dug and empty grave. After an hour of trying to get out, he sits down to wait for morning.
His friend comes back to find him, falls into the grave, and tries to get out for a while.
The first friend observes this, and when his friend gives up, says "you can't get out"
But he does.
====
So I think newspaper stock is a great investment.
-AC
I did notice he didn't say anything about the quality of his product, only the size of company and sales. Quantity will wither for lack of quality.
You would think a CEO would know that. Oh,yeah, that's riiiight, he didn't say anything about "smartest", either.
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