McClatchy chief executive Pruitt quits 4 family trusts

How long will it take the ADN (McClatchy owns the ADN) to tell its readers about this? Or maybe this isn't important enough to publish? When I Searched the ADN site for Gary Pruitt to make sure I didn't miss something, the last piece on Pruitt I found was dated June 16. This is from the Miami Herald.

Posted on Sat, Sep. 06, 2008

McClatchy Co. (MNI) Chief Executive Gary Pruitt resigned from four family trusts that control about 41 percent of the newspaper company's voting power.

The trusts hold 12.5 million Class B shares, the Sacramento, Calif.-based company said in a regulatory filing Friday. Pruitt holds 1.2 percent of the Class A shares that have one-tenth the voting rights.

The 51-year-old executive's departure as co-trustee could be a sign that the founding McClatchy family plans to review its options for the company, said Ken Doctor, an analyst at media consultant Outsell in Burlingame, Calif.

McClatchy, which owns The Miami Herald, has lost 93 percent of its market value since March 2006, when Pruitt announced the $4.1 billion acquisition of Knight Ridder.

''They've got to be looking at some kind of a financial restructuring,'' said Doctor, who worked at Knight Ridder before McClatchy bought the company.

McClatchy climbed 20 cents, or 5.8 percent, to $3.66 Friday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and has dropped 71 percent this year.

The family may be looking at a range of options, including a change of leadership, diversifying its holdings or a going- private transaction in which Pruitt may even participate, Doctor said. Pruitt isn't a family member, he added.

''You can't be on both ends of the transaction,'' Doctor said.

McClatchy Watch carries the article above and speculates on what it means. Essentially, he (and the commenters) say the family has watched Gary Pruitt bleed the company dry and only a wholesale removal of all the officers has a chance of success.

What will Alaska look like without a major newspaper? While McClatchy may have done things to speed the decline, the general prognosis for the newspaper industry isn't rosy. Will TV news expand to cover more local stories?

This is not a minor event. What will inherit the mantle of 'journal of record' for the state? We may not agree on the ADN's choice of stories to publish or not publish, however, it is a source that gives us a common set of stories every day, and keeps an eye on local, state, and federal elected officials, as well as businesses. Often people don't appreciate what they have until they lose it. Wait until television, weeklies, and blogs are covering the news to find out what all we take for granted from the ADN.