Knight Ridder Scrambles to Assemble Expert Panel

I'm sorry, but I found this article kinda funny in a sad way. It's about Knight Ridder trying to find a group of people with no conflicts of interest to make sure Knight Ridder gets sold to a company with journalistic integrity. (Thanks to Romenesko for the refer.)

From the article:

Article 10 of Knight Ridder's charter, which apparently was only recently noticed, requires the board to assemble a panel of journalism experts to advise it on whether a new owner would serve at least 90 percent of Knight Ridder's subscribers ``with the same degree of journalistic excellence, integrity and independence'' as Knight Ridder.

If the board makes such a finding, the requirement for shareholder approval of a sale drops to two-thirds, or 66 percent.

The panelists cannot have any material relationship with Knight Ridder. The fact that three major media chains -- Gannett, MediaNews Group and McClatchy -- may bid for the company is complicating the process of assembling a panel, as anyone connected with the potential buyers would have a conflict of interest.

Now, if they're gonna have that much trouble finding people not involved with Big Media who want to buy Knight Ridder, doesn't that kind of hint that too much of the media is owned by too few people?

Or is it just me?

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