1. Why Knight Ridder*, why Tony Ridder, given other newspaper companies' performance were as as poor or worse?
2. What will we learn about how Wall Street really values the newspapers' online businesses?
3. Is this the beginning of the end of the decades-long experiment in taking newspaper companies public?
4. Is private ownership, or the NYT/ WSJ/ WashPost structure of two-tier ownership, the only way to preserve journalism in a market economy bent on replacing advertising as we've known it with a pay-for-performance world?
5. What will become of the newspaper industry's best shot at an online network/efficiency structure, the fragile T (Tribune)/K (Knight Ridder)/G (Gannett) partnership, which has brought some united purpose and cost-sharing to the digital classified business?
6. What did Susan Goldberg mean when she said, about the Mercury News' cutback of 44 jobs:
"I don't think it will affect the quality of the reporting we do. There are going to be some things we're not going to do, but we're going to focus just as deeply on technology coverage and telling the story of this diverse community."
7. What message does it send that the buyout packages at the Philadelphia Inquirer were oversubscribed, meaning more people volunteered to leave than were needed to achieve the 75 full-time cutbacks?
8. How'd you like to be in the printing press business?
9. How much are younger print journalists rethinking their futures?
10. What is Jim Batten thinking?
*Disclosure: Ken Doctor is a retired Knight Ridder journalist and retains financial holdings in the company.
Real Cities seems to have been a real success for KR....what will happen to it? Can the RC revenue and traffic engine truly be separated and monetized away from the content (newspapers)?
Posted by: CJ | November 16, 2005 at 02:31 PM
Does the selling of KR signify a broader strategy shift by PCM? Which of its' holdings is next?
Posted by: CJ | November 16, 2005 at 02:31 PM