Should McClatchy's Gary Pruitt take a pay cut?

Mark Potts says some of the laid off McClatchy employees must be wondering why Gary Pruitt doesn't take a pay cut.

Take the 1,400 McClatchy employees who were recently targeted for layoffs. As they head for the unemployment office, they can wonder how many jobs might have been saved if McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt had agreed to give up some of $4.6 million (salary, bonus and stock) he took home in 2007. Of course, Pruitt did take a nearly $1 million pay cut from 2006–but that's only because his 2006 compensation package included a cool $1 million special bonus for overseeing the company's acquisition of Knight Ridder (gee, how'd that work out?). Indeed, his base bay for 2007 went up $50,000, to $1.1 million, and he still scored a $800,000 bonus, awarded to him by the company's board even though McClatchy missed operating targets for the year. His 2008 base salary has been frozen at $1.1 million, according to the company's proxy filing.

You've got to wonder if Pruitt could manage to maintain his lifestyle on, say, $2 million less, a few more McClatchy employees might still have jobs. As noted previously, Pruitt's doing a helluva job–in addition to the Knight Ridder fiasco and those missed financial targets last year, McClatchy stock is down 90 percent in the past four years. You'd think he'd be due for a cut.

Well, Duh. I predicted in December that Pruitt would "resign" from McClatchy in 2008 and walk away with a sweet severance package worth millions.
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McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt was paid $4.6 million in 2007