With more than 40 years of experience with the Knight and Knight Ridder newspaper empire, Merritt is well positioned to analyze how that venerable news organization and American journalism in general are struggling to reconcile the role of the press in a democracy with the pressure to produce profits. He traces the history of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain from the 1974 merger of two media empires and analyzes the forces that have slowly chipped away at its ability to maintain the integrity for which it has long been known. Merritt points to changes in American culture, including the rise of technology and the decline in newspaper reading as well as the enormous profit demands of investors, which have eroded the line between the editorial and business operations of newspapers. Drawing on interviews and his own recollections, Merritt details the personalities and events that caused many editors and publishers--including Merritt--to leave Knight Ridder as business and editorial interests clashed.
Vanessa BushCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Kurzbeschreibung
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 America's largest newspaper publishers. Knight Newspapers' editorial strengths and Ridder Publications' 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 "the 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 what's good for investors and advertisers rather than what'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 Merritt's personal accounts of the changes of the past 30 years. He combines keen analysis with colourful portraits of Knight Ridder's key personalities, starting with the founders themselves.
