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Information about Knight Newspapers

For the unrelated television series, see Knight Rider.


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The Knight Ridder building in downtown San Jose, California.
Knight Ridder (IPA: /ˈrɪdɚ/) was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by The McClatchy Company on June 27, 2006, it was the second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspapers.

History

The corporate ancestors of Knight Ridder were Knight Newspapers, Inc. and Ridder Publications, Inc. The first company was founded by John S. Knight upon inheriting control of The Akron Beacon Journal from his father, Charles Landon Knight, in 1933; the second company was founded by Herman Ridder when he acquired the German language Staats-Zeitung newspaper in 1892. As anti-German sentiment increased between the two world wars, Ridder successfully transitioned into English language publishing by acquiring the Journal of Commerce in 1926.

Both companies went public in 1969 and merged in 1974. For a brief time, the combined company was the largest newspaper publisher in the United States.

Knight Ridder had a long history of innovation in technology. It was one of the first newspaper publishers to experiment with videotex when it launched its Viewtron system in 1982, was one of the first to actively develop newspaper content for America Online in 1993, and joined the ill-fated New Century Network project in 1994.

Its flagship newspaper, The San Jose Mercury News, was one of the first daily newspapers to regularly publish its full content to the World Wide Web. Around 2000, KR moved its headquarters from Miami to be closer to its rising star in San Jose (although it chose to rent a sleek downtown high-rise rather than build new office space).

Many argue that the quality of Knight Ridder newspapers had suffered in recent years as its president, Tony Ridder, forced by shareholder demands, cut staff and budgets to achieve a profit margin of more than 20 percent.

In November of 2005, the company announced plans for "strategic initiatives," which involved the possible sale of the company. This came after major shareholders publicly said the company was worth less than the sum of its parts and urged management to put the company up for sale. The Newspaper Guild tried to work with an investment firm to take control of the Knight Ridder papers where it represented the journalists. Knight Ridder said it would only sell the company as a whole, not individual papers, and the Guild responded that if that happened, the investment group would try to buy some of the papers from the new owner.

On March 13, 2006, The McClatchy Company announced its agreement to purchase Knight Ridder for a purchase price of $6.5 billion in cash, stock and debt. The deal gave McClatchy 32 daily newspapers in 29 markets, with a total circulation of 3.3 million. However, for various reasons, McClatchy decided to immediately resell twelve of these papers. [1]

On April 26, 2006, it announced that the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, and St. Paul Pioneer Press (for antitrust reasons) would be sold to MediaNews Group (with backing from the Hearst Corporation) for $1 billion. [2]

Pre-Iraq War Reporting

Knight-Ridder reporters were some of the few journalists that questioned the basis of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as discussed in the episode of Bill Moyers Journal entitled "Buying the War". However, due to the lack of presence of Knight Ridder reporting in the newspapers of major media cities such as New York and Washington, DC, their reporting did not have as much of an impact as it would have had it come from The New York Times or The Washington Post.

List of newspapers

Daily newspapers owned by Knight Ridder and its predecessors included:

Knight Ridder Owned Companies

A list of companies that were at one time or another owned by Knight Ridder:
  • Presslink - ??-1996, Later became MediaStream
  • MediaStream - 1996-2001, Acquired by NewsBank
  • VuText

Knight Ridder-Owned Television Stations

From 1956 to 1962, Knight Newspapers, Inc. co-owned a then-NBC affiliate, WCKT in Miami, Florida, with the Cox publishing family.

In 1977, Knight Ridder entered broadcasting with the acquisition of Poole Broadcasting, which consisted of WJRT-TV in Flint, Michigan, WTEN in Albany, New York and its satellite WCDC in Adams, Massachusetts, and WPRI-TV in Providence, Rhode Island. Immediately after the acquisition of these stations was finalized, Knight Ridder cut a corporate affiliation deal with ABC, switching then-CBS affiliates WTEN/WCDC and WPRI (the latter of which eventually rejoined CBS) to ABC (WJRT was already affiliated with ABC when the affiliation deal was made). Knight Ridder would acquire several television stations in medium-sized markets during the 1980s, including three stations owned by The Detroit News which the Gannett Company (which purchased the newspaper in 1986) could not keep due to Federal Communications Commission regulations on media cross-ownership and/or television duopolies then in effect. (Interestingly, none of Knight Ridder's later acquisitions changed their network affiliations under Knight Ridder ownership; for example, then-NBC affiliate WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama remained an NBC affiliate when it was owned by Knight Ridder and would switch to Fox several years after Knight Ridder sold the station.) In early 1989, Knight Ridder announced its exit from broadcasting, selling all of its stations to separate buyers; the sales were finalized in the summer and early fall of that year.

Current DMA#MarketStationYears OwnedCurrent Affiliation/Owner
16.Miami, FloridaWCKT 7
(now WSVN)		1956-62**Fox affiliate owned by Sunbeam Television
30.Nashville, TennesseeWKRN-TV 21983-89ABC affiliate owned by Young Broadcasting
42.Norfolk, VirginiaWTKR 31981-89CBS affiliate owned by Local TV
45.Oklahoma City, OklahomaKTVY 4
(now KFOR-TV)		1986-89NBC affiliate owned by Local TV
52.Providence, Rhode IslandWPRI-TV 121977-89CBS affiliate owned by LIN Television
56.Albany, New YorkWTEN 101977-89ABC affiliate owned by Young Broadcasting
Adams, MassachusettsWCDC 19
(satellite of WTEN)		1977-89ABC affiliate owned by Young Broadcasting
61.Mobile, Alabama - Pensacola, FloridaWALA-TV 101986-89Fox affiliate owned by LIN Television
66.Flint, MichiganWJRT-TV 121977-89ABC owned-and-operated (O&O)
68.Tucson, ArizonaKOLD-TV 131986-89CBS affiliate owned by Raycom Media


**This station was co-owned by Knight Newspapers and Cox Newspapers, long before Knight's merger with Ridder Publications.

Trivia

  • The Dutch name "Ridder" is closely related to the German name "Ritter." Both names mean "knight."

External links

Reference

Knight Rider is a popular American television series that ran between September 26, 1982, and August 8, 1986.

The series was broadcast on NBC and starred David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, a kind of modern-day "knight" who drove an advanced smart car with artificial
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This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language.

See International Phonetic Alphabet for English for a more complete version and Pronunciation respelling for English for phonetic
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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Topics in journalism
Professional issues
Ethics & objectivity
Sources & attribution
News & news values
Reporting & writing
Fourth estate • Libel law
Education & books
Other topics

Fields
Advocacy journalism
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Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government
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Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information – the activity of making information available for public view. In some cases, authors may be their own publishers.
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The McClatchy Company

Public
Founded February 3, 1857
Headquarters Sacramento, California

Key people James McClatchy, founder of the Sacramento Bee
Industry Newspaper publishing
Website The McClatchy Company

The McClatchy Company
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Motto
"In God We Trust"   (since 1956)
"E Pluribus Unum"   ("From Many, One"; Latin, traditional)
Anthem
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John Shively Knight (October 26, 1894 – June 16, 1981) was an American newspaper publisher and editor.

He was born in Bluefield, West Virginia to Charles Landon Knight and Clara Scheifley.
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Akron Beacon Journal

The 2007-03-02 front page of the
Akron Beacon Journal
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner Black Press
Publisher Edward R.
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Charles Landon Knight (18 June 1867—26 September 1933) was an American lawyer and newspaper publisher who represented Ohio in the United States House of Representatives from 1921-1923. His sons built his newspaper business into what would become Knight Ridder.
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German language (Deutsch, ] (help info ) ) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.
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English}}} 
Writing system: Latin (English variant) 
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng  
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Videotex (or "interactive videotex") was one of the earliest implementations of an "end-user information system". From the late 1970s to mid-1980s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a
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Viewtron was an early online service offered by Knight-Ridder and AT&T. It started as a videotext service requiring users to have a special terminal, then became a computer-based service as Commodore and other personal computers became important in the marketplace.
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AOL LLC

Subsidiary of Time Warner
Founded 1985 (as Quantum Computer Services)
Headquarters New York, New York, United States

Key people Randy Falco, Ted Leonsis, Ronald Grant
Industry Internet & Communications
Products Internet service
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San Jose Mercury News

The July 27, 2005 front page of the
San Jose Mercury News
Type Daily newspaper
Format Broadsheet

Owner MediaNews Group
Editor Carole Leigh Hutton
Founded 1851 (as the San Jose Weekly Visitor)
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TNG-CWA

The Newspaper Guild
Founded 1933
Members 34,000
Country United States, Canada
Affiliation CWA, IFJ
Key people Linda Foley, president
Office location Washington, D.C.
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The McClatchy Company

Public
Founded February 3, 1857
Headquarters Sacramento, California

Key people James McClatchy, founder of the Sacramento Bee
Industry Newspaper publishing
Website The McClatchy Company

The McClatchy Company
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April 26 is the 1st day of the year (2nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 0 days remaining.

It is the first day following the spring equinox which cannot be Easter Sunday in Western Christianity.
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United States
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  • Rule of reason
Europe
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    competition law

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MediaNews Group

Private
Founded 1983
Headquarters 101 West Colfax Avenue, Suite 1100, Denver, Colorado 80202 USA

Key people Richard Scudder, chairman
William Dean Singleton, vice chair, CEO
Jody Lodovic, president
Steven Rossi, COO
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The Hearst Corporation is a privately-held American-based media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower in New York City, USA. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media.
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