Florida-based newspaper publisher Knight Ridder Inc, which owns the San Jose Mercury News among many others, is moving its HQ and more than a third of its key executive staff from Miami to Silicon Valley. Chairman and CEO Tony Ridder announced the move at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, saying that as a news and information company, Knight Ridder needed to stay close to developments in new media. He cited a US Department of Commerce report which describes the manufacture of IT as the single biggest driver of the US economy. Of late Knight Ridder has been embroiled in labor disputes in Detroit and Monterey. At the same meeting, 98 per cent of shareholders voted down a union plan which would have linked executive salaries to editorial quality. Union protestors demonstrated outside.
