John Morton
John Morton
companies company growing inherited markets newspaper tony work
Tony Ridder inherited a company that had a lot of newspaper companies that are not in growing markets and would never be in growing markets. That's what he inherited, and that's what he had to work with.
came improve known nightmare perfect pounding tony worst
It was a perfect target; Tony Ridder has known this for years and that's why he was pounding for the need to improve profitability. His worst nightmare came true.
fairly fat generally industry layoffs newspapers standards
These newspapers generally have by industry standards fairly fat news staffs, so generally the layoffs are not draconian,
acquires daily early kept knight matter miracle newspaper profitable publish victim
An early victim would be the Philadelphia Daily News, no matter who acquires the company. It's much more profitable to publish one newspaper than two in the same market. It's a kind of miracle Knight Ridder kept it going this long.
attract bad good inclined newspaper people seem
I used to think in the good old days, all a newspaper had to do to attract circulation was to put out a better newspaper. But young people don't seem any more inclined to read a good newspaper than a bad one.
deal outside somewhat structure
That structure is somewhat different than what we outside the deal had surmised,
acquired address appearing larger lower mirror operating papers profits size staff thrown trying typical
When Tribune acquired Times Mirror they acquired papers with much lower operating profits than Tribune papers have traditionally thrown off. The L.A. Times has a larger staff than is typical for that size of paper. They've been trying to address that without appearing to be a slash-and-burn company.
buyer chains concentration discard future goes growth markets newspaper ownership
There are only so many growth markets. As concentration of ownership goes forward, you'll see future acquisitions of newspaper chains go pretty much the way this one did: The buyer will keep the growth markets and discard the rest.
Let's just say you didn't want to make Ramon Ramos mad. Ramon had your back.
affected call cuts fat industry leave news newspapers
The news staffs of the newspapers affected have all been pretty fat by industry standards, ... The cuts don't leave these newspapers in what I would call a weakened condition.
talked
That's talked about a lot, but it usually never happens.
attractive close community coverage fighting market newspapers people post share washington
It's an attractive market, which is why there are so many people fighting for market share over there. The Washington Post is never going to get down to the chicken-dinner coverage of these communities, and some of these community newspapers come close to that.
history trying
The history of trying to start a daily where there already is one is that it has never worked.
anchors draw people shopping sort tend
They're sort of like anchors at a shopping mall. They tend to draw people to the newspaper.