John Morton Newspaper Quotations

The news staffs of the newspapers affected have all been pretty fat by industry standards, ... The cuts don't leave these newspapers in what I would call a weakened condition.

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.

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.

It's an attractive market, which is why there are so many people fighting for market share over there. The Washington Post is never going to get down to the chicken-dinner coverage of these communities, and some of these community newspapers come close to that.

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.

A head-to-head between tabloids is as New York as cheesecake. Fortunately we have two owners who are willing to sink their money into it. It would be a terrible thing if it went away, and as a newspaper lover, I hope they just keep doing it.

There are only so many growth markets. As concentration of ownership goes forward, you'll see future acquisitions of newspaper chains go pretty much the way this one did: The buyer will keep the growth markets and discard the rest.

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