Ex-Publisher Faults Knight-Ridder Focus

Two days before resigning as chairman and publisher of the San Jose Mercury News, Jay Harris woke in the middle of the night with a knot in his stomach and a lot on his mind.

Only hours before, Harris and executives from the Mercury News had met with representatives from the newspaper’s parent company, Knight-Ridder, to discuss a response to a sharp drop in the paper’s advertising revenues.

Harris, telling his story to a meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) on Friday, said the Knight-Ridder executives were seeking a profit target for the newspaper that couldn’t be achieved without layoffs and cutbacks.

“Our discussions were focused on getting to a number and essentially blind to all else,” he said. “There was virtually no discussion of the damage that would be done to the quality and aspirations of the Mercury News as a journalistic endeavor or to its ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the community.

“It was like watching a loved-one commit suicide--unintentionally.”

Harris’ resignation on March 19 came as a surprise to many.

Harris, 52, had been publisher for seven years, expanding the paper’s coverage of the Silicon Valley. He also had been noted for efforts to bring increased racial diversity to American newsrooms.

At Friday’s meeting, ASNE President Richard Oppel of the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman said that the organization invited Knight-Ridder executives to appear with Harris on an equal footing and that they declined.

But during a question-and-answer session that followed Harris’ remarks, Knight-Ridder vice president for news Jerry Ceppos went to a microphone.

Without criticizing Harris, he defended the editorial integrity and capabilities of the Mercury News. Ceppos, formerly top editor of the Mercury News, said the staff size and the content of the paper would provide excellent coverage for the community. He said he thought the number of journalists at the Mercury News was generous for its circulation of 289,000.

In his speech, Harris said he was worried that “in Knight-Ridder, greater priority was increasingly given to the business aspects of the enterprise than was given to fulfilling the public trust.”

“Knight-Ridder journalists continue to do the best journalism they are capable of, which I want to emphasize is still among the best in the nation. But the momentum of the company, like the momentum in many other media companies, is tending in the wrong direction,” he said.

Harris said the drive for “ever-increasing profits” is pulling down the quality of newspapers.

“Today, we hear a growing chorus of brave souls--both inside and outside the industry--protesting vigorously, and an audible grumbling of discontent from within the ranks of journalists and readers alike,” he said.

Despite his concerns, Harris said, he was optimistic about the future of American newspapers. He said employees from the editorial and business sides must work together with readers and scholars to define what the public trust requires of newspaper owners and managers.

Harris, former executive editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, has spent nearly 30 years in journalism. He was a national correspondent and columnist for Gannett News Service in Washington, D.C., and a member of the faculty of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

After his climactic meeting with the Knight-Ridder officials, Harris said, he went home to rest, but woke up at 3 a.m. feeling “deeply troubled.”

“The idea came together in my mind that resigning was the only way to slow things down, to possibly get corporate to open their eyes . . .” he said. “I knew that morning that I wanted to go no farther down a road leading away from all I thought was best and most important about being a newspaper publisher and a journalist.”

Harris got a standing ovation when he concluded his speech.

Before his resignation, Harris had announced plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees, blaming a dramatic fall in help-wanted ad revenue and other signs of an economic slowdown in the Silicon Valley.

The Mercury News, which has 1,700 employees, is the third-largest newspaper in Northern California.

San Jose-based Knight-Ridder, which publishes 32 daily newspapers including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Detroit Free Press, has said advertising revenues fell 2.7% in February compared with February 2000, with markets in San Jose, Philadelphia and Detroit showing the greatest weakness. The company is the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher group.

Harris said Friday that he resigned not just because of possible cuts to news staff, but because of the potential damage to the entire paper.

“I had watched a long train of abuses against the traditions and core values of a great profession and a great company,” he said. “I had witnessed enough.”