Business
STATESMAN SOLD!!
August 3, 2005 
BULLETIN–Idaho’s largest newspaper, the Idaho Statesman, long a profit center for the GANNETT news chain has been sold to the KNIGHT-RIDDER chain.
Knight is known for such award winning newspapers as the DETROIT FREE PRESS and the MIAMI HERALD. The Gannett chain has journalistically been known as the “McNEWSPAPER” for its lackluster attention to news and an emphasis on advertising revenues.
Statesmen staffers were notified at a surprise company-wide announcement Wednesday afternoon. K-R has a reputation of being “reporter friendly” and the firm is still run by members of the founding families. Tony Ridder is supposedly scheduled to visit Boise as early as Thursday.
The deal came in a series of complex trades which incljuded divesting the K-R chain of the venerable old Detrpoit FREE PRESS and taking over the Detroit NEWS. Gannett has been buying up papers in Michigan, especially suburban dailies and weeklies.
Some details of the Detroit trade can be found at Poynter Online.
To insure more advertising-free Boise Guardian news, please consider financial support.
Comments & Discussion
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Aug 3, 2005, 3:40 pm
Maybe now they’ll get rid of the advertising sticker on the front page.