The sale of Knight Ridder to McClatchy Newspapers (for $4.5 billion) is well documented this week in all the news media, including the Mercury News, which describes its own fate of being purchased on one day and then sold (by McClatchy) as soon as possible thereafter to the highest bidder. McClatchy is keeping some of the daily papers owned by Knight Ridder—the ones considered “cream of the crop”—and auctioning off the others—the ones that don’t make enough money (real money or the stock market kind).
McClatchy, the Mercury News reports, will not require any of the Knight Ridder people or buildings that currently take up space in downtown San Jose. This includes the almost-a-skyscraper on W. San Fernando St. next to the Fairmont Hotel, as well as the two 57,000 lb. logos that spell out “Knight Ridder” near the top of the building. The logos are not exactly generic and will have to come down, probably to be auctioned off on eBay to some guy with a really big crane.
The Australian (a newspaper in Australia) notes that the McClatchy Company was founded during the California gold rush by an Irish immigrant—the original McClatchy—and the business has been in the family ever since; mining giant companies nowadays, by cracky.
Questions arise. Who will buy the Mercury News? What will the effects be on downtown San Jose from all these shenanigans? Where does one deposit two slightly-used 57,000 lb. logos of a company that no longer exists? Egads!
Perhaps the ECV Clampers are more influential than anyone realized and have engineered the McClatchy caper in order to buy the Mercury News lock, stock and barrel—sweet revenge for the Merc never writing about their history endeavors in San Jose and environs.
Anyway, the San Fernando site is ideally situated for a Wal-Mart Super Store to attract downtown shoppers, and the Brobdingnagian logos would look appropriate next to the “Tony Ridder’s Big Shoes” statue in Guada-loopy Park. As for the sale of the Mercury News—please, serious inquires only.
The Merc is toast.
News media outlets that don’t innovate (has anyone ever seen the words “union” and “innovation” used in the same sentence?) are dying, one by one.
Time to move on and figure out what to do with the building.
For far too long now San Jose has been in the shadow of San Francisco and Berkeley as far as the number of peace marches and other assorted ‘actions’.
My proposal for the building? Lease it to Haliburton.
Protesting in front of the building could be marketed as a rite of passage for the up and coming generation of Bay Area leftists.
Just think of all the revenue opportunities:
– SJ charges admission for the right to march in front of the building.
– Bull horn rentals
– Vegan sandwich shops, etc…
We could haul the logos to Alviso and use them as docking for recreational boats. Place them near the new EVC plague. Remember ABC.
Losing those tacked-on, oversized paper weight logos would be the best thing to come out of the KR sale. Those “sings” have been an eyesore since day 1. Once again, our “leaders” were so desperate to have some kind of identity, they rolled over on our sign ordinances and gave KR whatever they wanted. You’d think a company of that size could have done a better job than just sticking something on the side of their building that proclaims “ours is bigger than yours.” So long, KR and please take your signs with you.
ABC
Rename the Capital Club the Knight Ridder lounge.
Good piece Eric. Maybe Wal-Mart could make it a super store with groceries on the top floor. I’ll be at the Clampers Alviso dedication on Saturday the 25th. Maybe I can promote the idea of the sale of the Merc-News to them. I’ll need help maybe from finfan, Mark T and JohnCharles.
Dan, if the Merc fell into the capable hands of ECV, it would be the most entertaining and insightful, right-on paper in the country!
First order of business would be to get one of the Clampers to take over that long-winded Male Call column and turn it into something men actually want to read, not women.
That building is jinxed. First Calpine goes bankrupt then Knight Ridder is erased.
Pete and Tony should get together on some type of joint venture. Maybe a new power plant using day old newspapers as fuel.
Sorry JohnMichael I didn’t mean to slight you or rename you above.
Maybe we could even get the Clampers to move into the Knight Ridder Building and make some sort of regional headquarters. Seriously I think the best solution for the Merc would be locally owned and locally managed. I realize that newspaper sales don’t pay for the paper. There has to be lots of advertising revenue. The lack of advertising revenue is what made McClatchy’s decision. The Sacramento Bee is a fine newspaper. We need a first rate unbiased newspaper to represent us.
Dan, I feel confident that Tony is trying to work up a deal that will save his newspaper.
If you think adverstising revenue is down now, just wait until Gannett starts producing
“San Jose Today,” which nobody in their right mind would even buy or subscribe to. Might as well sell a paper like that at the supermarket checkstand.
The sale of the Mercury News,
If the Mercury News is making money, why don’t the workers, and past workers at the Merc form a corporation and buy the paper?
They could keep their logos and switch the letters around so they read: The RIGHT KINDD news
I haven’t read a USA Today newspaper in years and I don’t have any recollection of reading any paper owned by Gannett so I can’t make a personal judgement.
I have the habit of reading the daily newspaper including Sundays from front to last page. I get a lot more, in depth, information than I do from the Internet. I also watch one of the national network news broadcasts everyday. Maybe some would call me a “News Junkie” but it has been my habit since I was about 11 years old delivering the San Jose Evening News in the new Kaiser Tract Subdivision on the San Jose/Santa Clara border. Tony certainly has my encouragement.
Just to change the subject to one we have beaten to death here. I picked up a brochure today for the 2006 San Jose Grand Prix, July 28, 29, & 30th. The prices range from $25.00 General Admission on Park Avenue on Friday to a Gold Grandstand Pass for three days for $160. All info at http://www.SJGP.COM. I won’t be going. San Jose residents should get a free pass for the $4,000,000.00 they donated to pull it off.
Hmm. Any of these work?
KINDRED RIGHT
KINDRED GIRTH
RIGHTED DRINK
DRINKED RIGHT
Dan, I am right there with you. And maybe you delivered the paper to the house where I was born, on Peachtree Lane. No, on 2nd thought I guess you didn’t since we never subscribed to the SJ News, it was always the morning Mercury. I too delivered the SJ news for a while in my jr. high years. My bike did not appreciate it one bit.
I agree with you that there isn’t more thorough reporting than in the newspaper (USA Today excluded) and that TV and web news is way too much fluff and not enough substance, sloppy reporting and, across the board on TV news, poor use of English.
I’ll take the paper any day if I really want to get the details on any news story.
Sorry, the only free passes go to your elected officials and their staff and those we determine to be official “big shots.” Some might say the rest of you should stop whining and open up your wallets. Oh, and don’t complain about the garbage rate going up—there’s another increase after that. And, just to make you happy, how about raising the sales tax to the highest in the state. Happy now??
Yes I delivered Peachtree, and Sunny Vista, and Walnut Grove. I delivered from Newhall to Cherrystone. It was fun but drudgery. There isn’t any other place where one can go in depth in the news except the newspaper. Television news is PRODUCED for the show. Oh well we just have to wait and see what happens with the Merc.
#14 – Grind off the ‘K’, black out one of the ‘D’s, then sell it on eBay as memorabilia from the old David Hasselhoff / Kit the talking car television show.
http://www.captionmachine.com/photos/21.jpg
Just drop the extra “d.” Then it would be called what everyone calls it now anyway:
Knight Rider
RDA could add some multi-story Hasselhoff supergraphics to one side of the building. Insert museum downstairs. CVB begins marketing to Germans. Done.
We can now be known as the David Hasselhoff Capitol of the World!
Jumble the letters to form the name of the new company that would own the Merc. I should say there should even be a contest for it.
Eric, do you really think that a WalFart would go well in Downtown? Perhaps the RDA would be willing to shell out millions in subsidies to make it happen?
The Merc can foldup and blow away for all I care. I’ve been a resident of SJ for 6 years. The first 5 years I subscribed but then I realized that after 5 years of faithfully reading the paper I still didn’t have a clue as to what was going on politically with city and other local government.
Add that the bulk of the world and national news was under the name of the NY Times and the LA Times and terribly slanted, and the Merc was just not delivering what I wanted to pay for – honest reportage.
I’ve picked up more on this website in a month than I learned in 5 years from the Merc.