Friday, December 12, 2008

Who will replace Gary Pruitt?

No, not replace Pruitt at McClatchy -- replace him as president of the Newspaper Association of America. Fitz and Jen have news about the latest dilemma facing newspaper executives:
George B. Irish, the head of Hearst's newspaper division who announced his retirement earlier this week, is next in line for the NAA chairmanship seat. It's currently held by McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt. The changing of the guard occurs during the NAA's annual convention in the spring. This year, San Diego is hosting the meeting in April.

Now that Irish is out at Hearst, who is going to fill the position? When I asked the NAA, they said the matter is under discussion. It's newish territory for the association: they said it's hard to track but certainly within the last decade this has never happened.

Typically, the vice chairman, which Irish is now, takes the chairmanship the following year. Here is NAA's current executive committee:
  • Chairman: Gary Pruitt
  • Vice Chairman: George Irish
  • Secretary: Mark Contreras, E.W. Scripps
  • Treasurer: Michael Reed, GateHouse Media

I don't think they want Pruitt to stay on another term. He apparently didn't bother writing some of the monthly newsletter columns that the president is supposed to write:
One of the duties of chairmanship of the Newspaper Association of America is to write a monthly column in organization's magazine. As chairman, Gary Pruitt now has that honor. For several months though his column has been absent from those pages...

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I say Robert Decherd, CEO, of A. H. Belo corporation, should get the Chair.

Decherd just got a 140% pay raise. He should have plenty of disposable income to make all those NAA meetings into a celebration of journalistic stewardship

Anonymous said...

Editor & Publisher

-With A.H. Belo Employee Salaries Frozen, CEO and CFO Get Raises-

……Dallas Morning News their other newspapers, [imposed an across-the-board wage freeze] …. CEO Robert W. Decherd's base salary will be changed from $250,000 to $600,000.
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I was interested in what the salary was. Not a bad raise, and the words ‘base salary’ might mean other incentives as well. I think employees with their wages frozen, might not be thrilled with this news.