How enterprising reporters at one Knight Ridder orphan paper covered its sale

Reporters at many of the "Orphaned 12" Knight Ridder newspapers have done an outstanding job of trying to cover a most difficult story: the prospective sale of their own employers. 

The "Orphaned 12" refers to the 12 Knight Ridder newspapers that the McClatchy Co. said it would not keep as part of its acquisition of the Knight Ridder company.  Prior to McClatchy's successful bid for Knight Ridder, many of the other KR newspapers had aggressive reporters covering the company's demise.

The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel's record during this period is largely one of silence.

That's why I was delighted to speak with one of those reporters at an "Orphaned 12" newspaper who told me how she, her reporter colleagues, and, yes, even her editors, worked to cover the sale of their own newspaper.

Her name is Angela Mettler, a reporter for the Aberdeen American News.  Fort Wayne Observed is pleased to be the first to report her story "about the story." 

The Aberdeen American News is being purchased by the Indiana-based Schurz Communications. Schurz Communications is a family owned business which publishes, among other properties, the South Bend Tribune, the Bloomington (IN) Herald Times and the Noblesville Daily Times.

Ms. Mettler said that shortly after McClatchy's announcement that Aberdeen would be one of the newspapers to be sold, the Aberdeen reporters met as a staff.  They agreed that whenever a group of what looked like potential buyers toured the newspaper, one of the reporters would approach them and ask if they would identify themselves and comment about whether they were prospective purchasers. 

Ms. Mettler and a colleague, Emily Arthur, volunteered for the duty. They had met with the Executive Editor Cindy Eikamp to discuss how this would be handled and the editor and the reporters agreed on this procedure.  Depending on their work schedule, one of the two would approach the party of unknown visitors and attempt to obtain information. 

In the event that the party did not identify themselves, the reporters had other techniques at their disposal.  Whenever a group of visitors was in the building, a staff member might go out to the airport and check the tail numbers of the airplanes the visitors used.  The tail numbers could then be checked against a public database to identify the owner of the aircraft.

The Aberdeen reporters worked with other reporters at sister Knight Ridder newspapers in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Duluth, Minnesota, to share notes on groups of visitors.  Photographs might be exchanged of visitors in an attempt to check them against those of executives at other newspaper groups.  The network of reporters worked to share whatever data each might have on prospective buyers.

After the initial meeting with their executive editor, the Aberdeen reporters were reduced to interviewing the publisher, Jerome Ferson, about prospective buyers as if he were someone at any other unaffiliated company.  Ms. Mettler said that was one of the most "weird" aspects of this reporting experience.

As it turned out, the Schurz Communications group was one of the visiting groups which declined to be interviewed.  The Schurz group included: Marty Switalski, Schurz V.P. of Finance; David Leone, publisher of the Imperial Valley Press of California; and, Adlai Stevenson IV, an independent consultant.

Mr. Stevenson is a former television reporter.  His father was U.S. Senator from Illinois; his grandfather was Governor of Illinois and twice the Democratic nominee for President, and his great-grandfather was Vice-President of the United States.  The family was long associated with the Bloomington (IL) Pantagraph newspaper.

Ms. Mettler told me that Schurz very much wanted to make an acquisition in South Dakota.  I remarked that Aberdeen's size and the presence of its universities would match well with Schurz' experience in Bloomington and South Bend. 

My own impression of the Schurz conduct of newspapers has been very positive.  I told her that Schurz had done something quite unusual in recent years in Indiana: it started a new daily, the Noblesville Daily Times, from scratch.  Ms. Mettler said the staff did not yet know that about their new owner and she interpreted it as a positive indicator.

Posted by Mitch Harper

Permission to use with attribution to Mitch Harper and Fort Wayne Observed.