Knightfall

With corporate balance sheets dictating what we read, freedom of speech is in peril⬔ and freedom itself may be compromised. In 1974, two publicly held media empires merged to become one of Americaâ¬"s largest newspaper publishers. Knight Newspapersâ¬" editorial strengths and Ridder Publicationsâ¬" business strengths looked like a natural mix. But combined, the different cultures were constantly at odds. Thirty years later, Knight Ridder⬔whose nearly three dozen daily papers include...
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With corporate balance sheets dictating what we read, freedom of speech is in peril⬔ and freedom itself may be compromised. In 1974, two publicly held media empires merged to become one of Americaâ¬"s largest newspaper publishers. Knight Newspapersâ¬" editorial strengths and Ridder Publicationsâ¬" business strengths looked like a natural mix. But combined, the different cultures were constantly at odds. Thirty years later, Knight Ridder⬔whose nearly three dozen daily papers include The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press, and the San Jose Mercury News⬔struggles to reconcile journalistic responsibility with what the author, a 42-year veteran of the company, calls â¬Sthe insatiable profit demands of Wall Street.⬝ The factors that threaten (and shape) the editorial mission of Knight Ridder reveal a plague affecting virtually all of American journalism: as the wall between editorial and business departments crumbles, content is driven more and more by whatâ¬"s good for investors and advertisers rather than whatâ¬"s good for democracy. A free and unbiased press is a cornerstone of democracy, Merritt argues, and its erosion a catastrophe in the making: the real possibility that the kind of journalism essential to democracy will disappear. Knightfall includes dozens of interviews, as well as Merrittâ¬"s personal accounts of the changes of the past 30 years. He combines keen analysis with colourful portraits of Knight Ridderâ¬"s key personalities, starting with the founders themselves.