Posted on 12/28/2006 7:36:46 PM PST by LdSentinal
When the McClatchy Co. got the keys to the Star Tribune in 1998, McClatchy's patriarch hailed the merger. James McClatchy called it a wedding of two newspaper traditions that shared "a deep-rooted commitment to building a just society." You now are permitted to laugh derisively.
Eight years later, hardly anyone in the newspaper business talks about anything other than building profit margins that would choke a robber baron.
Mercifully, Mr. McClatchy passed away in May and did not live to see the Sacramento-based company that bore his name disgrace his legacy by dumping its largest newspaper -- the most important one between Chicago and the West Coast, the one that serves 5 million Minnesotans and that can be a conscience, a scold, a cheerleader and an interpreter of life on the tundra.
On the day after Christmas, the McClatchy Co. took the Star Tribune to the return window and sold us to a company that removes medical wastes, drills for oil and (quoting its website) "operates four off-shore jack-ups, three mobile off-shore production units and one self-propelled completion and work over rig" in the Gulf of Mexico. Not to mention a newspaper in flyoverland.
Maybe we're an on-shore jack-up.
You are what you eat. So when McClatchy swallowed the larger Knight Ridder newspaper chain last spring, a lot of people worried that the $6.1 billion deal would spell trouble in the Twin Cities.
Both newspapers here were in play: the Star Tribune, as the "flagship" of McClatchy, and the Pioneer Press (where I worked for 17 years) as one of the Ridder heritage newspapers.
We were right to worry.
First, McClatchy sold the Pioneer Press to MediaNews Group. Staff reductions followed, with threats of more to come.
Now McClatchy has dumped the Star Tribune
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Scold? Cheerleader? -- Well, Nick-boy certainly got that right! I wonder if he understands the irony? Those two words sum up the Strib better than I ever could. Need any more hints, Nick, as to why the Strib's readership has been plummeting?
A minor league propagandist, cut by the big club, he soon will have to get a real job.
Thank God for the Internet.
Maybe, soon, the AP and Reuters will be forgotten.
Anyone remember the UPI or Newsweek?
Nick,
I've been reading the Strib for 30 years and won't miss it a bit when it's gone. Watching its downward spiral into non-existence is fun. The world is passing you and yours by, brother. You are doomed by blogs, Craig's List, and the fact that half the population holds the paper in great contempt. You were never nearly as important as you figured, and your absence will hardly be noticed. Reading you personally whine and complain about your paper being sold for less than half of what it was bought for a few short years ago is most delicious. When the operation folds perhaps Keith Ellson can help some of the staff get new jobs in the CAIR PR department. He's gotta be awfully grateful for the great you job you guys did for him.
Now that I think about it, I guess I will miss seeing the Powerline guys eat your lunch and push you over the edge on a regular basis.
You used to actually be fairly likable, if a bit loopy, on the radio. What the hell has happened to you?
My Grandfather told me about them once, on a late snowy evening, but I wasn't paying much attention at the time... CA....
Almost as much fun a watching a train wreck!
Maybe he should go write copy for CNN or Al Querty @ CBS.
After reading this I can only hope that the new owners can screw Nicky boy out of his pension before they are done.
Loss leader, for tax purposes.
Hook em !
Nick Coleman, a left wing loon in a loony left wing state. I am so happy that the Star has been sold, now maybe we can get a little more fair and balanced reporting! Being one of the dwindling subscribers, it would make this a much better paper to read. Now its time for them to start cleaning house.
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