Word: ridder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...news organizations heavy with broadcast outlets and light on print. The Wichita area (pop. 400,000) has four local TV stations and ten radio stations, but only two daily papers. The morning Eagle (circ. 129,000) and the evening Beacon (58,000) are both owned by the absentee Ridder chain and share a single editorial staff. Efforts to organize a quality paper to compete with the bland Eagle and Beacon have repeatedly failed...
...oversees a stable of seven reporters, is on leave from his editing job at the Washington Post. Investigative Reporter Randy Brown, 34, contributed to the Omaha Sun's Pulitzer-prizewinning exposé of Boys' Town. Former Beacon Copy Chief Les Anderson, 25, was lured away from the Ridder operation along with other talented but disgruntled writers. "I was turning into a vegetable," he says. "There was always the feeling that you had to be careful not to offend an advertiser...
...Ridder chain was built up by the heirs of Herman Ridder, a German immigrant who acquired a German-language daily in New York in 1890; though Ridder owns the New York Journal of Commerce, its other properties are located in Western states. Says Bernard H. Ridder Jr., 57, who would continue to run the papers as a Knight-Ridder subsidiary: "The merger logic is simple. We have a good geographical fit, and there's no conflict in circulation...
Though Editorial Chairman John Knight no longer writes his Pulitzer Prize winning column of political and social commentary every week, the two Knight brothers (who hold 47% of the chain's stock) are still active on the publishing side. Knight-Ridder's chairman and chief executive officer would be Lee Hills, 68, a North Dakota-born newspaper veteran who has been president of Knight since 1967. Hills aims to continue the editorial autonomy that has been traditional in both the Knight and the Ridder chains. "We don't think you can stamp newspapers out of cookie cutters...
...Ridder papers include such varied properties as the Journal of Commerce, a useful if pork-belly plain compendium of business news; Colorado's folksy Boulder Daily Camera (circ. 22,380); and the St. Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, which occasionally outshines its bigger Twin City sisters. In general, however, the Ridder papers do not have the heft and influence of the Knight dailies. Though the Knight brothers are both conservatives, the papers are what Hills describes as "central progressive." In the 1972 election six Knight papers endorsed Richard Nixon and two backed George McGovern; only two echoed John Knight...