38 Quotes by John Morton

He has most of the dailies that now surround San Francisco proper and this only enlarges his presence in the area. With the California properties, Singleton has more of a motive than other folks to pay a higher price because it would enhance what he already owns.

He made everyone's job easier because he was a center who knew how to play the game. He knew when to shoot, when to pass out.

That structure is somewhat different than what we outside the deal had surmised,

Tony Ridder inherited a company that had a lot of newspaper companies that are not in growing markets and would never be in growing markets. That's what he inherited, and that's what he had to work with.

An early victim would be the Philadelphia Daily News, no matter who acquires the company. It's much more profitable to publish one newspaper than two in the same market. It's a kind of miracle Knight Ridder kept it going this long.

It was a perfect target; Tony Ridder has known this for years and that's why he was pounding for the need to improve profitability. His worst nightmare came true.

These newspapers generally have by industry standards fairly fat news staffs, so generally the layoffs are not draconian,

I used to think in the good old days, all a newspaper had to do to attract circulation was to put out a better newspaper. But young people don't seem any more inclined to read a good newspaper than a bad one.

This is quite a dramatic change from what the history of the company has been in terms of whom the board has chosen to lead it.