Word: gannett
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Combative, outspoken Al Neuharth was, on the whole, good to the Gannett Co. He built the firm into the biggest U.S. newspaper chain, gave it a vivacious national flagship, USA Today, and swept up many other media properties. Then again, Gannett was good to Neuharth. It paid him handsomely, and when he retired in 1989, at 65, gave him stock worth $5.1 million and $300,000 a year, guaranteed for life. Any gratitude was short-lived. In the two years since, the man who wrote Confessions of an S.O.B. has turned to global press philanthropy -- in no small measure...
...Maynard showed the cunning of an investment banker last week in preventing the Oakland Tribune from closing down for good. Maynard, the only black owner of a metropolitan newspaper in the U.S., raised the last-minute cash by playing on the rivalry between the paper's largest creditor, the Gannett chain, and that company's retired chief, Allen Neuharth...
Maynard bought the paper from Gannett for $22 million in 1983 but stopped payments in 1986. Now owing $31.5 million, including interest, he threatened to close the money-losing daily unless Gannett settled for $2.5 million. Maynard then arranged for financing from the Freedom Forum, which was known as the Gannett Foundation until its leader, Neuharth, had a falling-out with his former employer earlier this year. Neuharth's foundation will invest $5 million in the paper for an option to buy a 20% stake. Gannett will receive a $2.5 million note payable in 1994, plus preferred stock...
Other stories have been more eye-opening, like an article reporting on the campaign by a younger generation of gay militants to label themselves "queers." Says Everette Dennis, executive director of the Gannett Foundation Media Center: "The Times has been ahead of the pack recently in bringing more soft news and how-to stories, plus adding a touch of tabloid sensationalism." Other newspeople are more judgmental. Says a Washington bureau chief: "The front page isn't the gauge of important news that it used...
...weed out lesbians. Moreover, at the peak of the crisis, the Times had the financial muscle to put 17 correspondents in the gulf -- five more than the New York Times and seven more than the Washington Post. "They had superlative coverage," says Everette Dennis, executive director of the Gannett Foundation Media Center at Columbia University. "It was imaginative, with a great deal of depth...