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Topic: Miscellaneous items
Date/Time: 5/15/2006 9:40:12 AM
Title: Staffers at Philly papers oppose Onex
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
Dear Knight Ridder alum:

The staffs of The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News need your help. As many of you know, bids for the purchase of the two newspapers are due to be presented to the McClatchy Company by Tuesday, May 16. A decision on the sale could be announced within two weeks.

A petition is currently being circulated expressing staffers' strong opposition to one of the bidders, Onex Corp. of Toronto, for the reasons cited below. (See Joe DiStefano’s report that Onex sought assurance of the Teamsters that, in exchange for preserving their own jobs, drivers, pressmen and mailers would not oppose attempts to eliminate hundreds of newsroom jobs.)

It would be of great help if KR alums joined in the effort to ensure a viable future for these newspapers by expressing your own concerns to Gary Pruitt, CEO of McClatchy.

Pruitt may be contacted at the address below or through the company’s E-mail. The Newspaper Guild in Philadelphia has set up a web site to collect comments, which will be forwarded to the McClatchy Co. by overnight mail. To add your comments, go to [this site].

Here is a copy of the petition being circulated by the Guild and signed by staffers:

Mr. Gary B. Pruitt
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
The McClatchy Company
2100 Q Street
Sacramento, CA 95816

Mr. Pruitt:

Philadelphia is a great region that has been served for years by two strong newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, which your company is in the process of acquiring and selling.

According to a news report in the May 12 editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Onex Corp. of Toronto has proposed to cut in half the number of people who work in the newsrooms of these newspapers. This would come after several waves of downsizing already have cut into the bone of our ability to serve our communities. All Onex cares about is looting and pillaging the papers to extract a quick profit. Having done that, we believe they would sell the shell that remains and make a quick exit, leaving the citizens of this region to suffer the consequences of their actions for decades to come.

We, the undersigned journalists, urge you to reject the sale of these newspapers to any party that seeks to pit workers against each other, as Onex reportedly would do, and destroy the ability of our newspapers to provide essential services to one of the most important and historic regions of the United States.

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