Do we have to remember the papers' JOA?(Column)(Joint Operating Agreement, Knight-Ridder, Gannett )

Crain's Detroit Business, November, 2004 by Crain, Keith

Byline: KEITH CRAIN It's been over a decade since Knight-Ridder and Gannett cooked up a scheme to combine both of their Detroit papers into a single monopoly. The joint operating agreement has worked well for both companies, as it would appear they are making money - although no one would applaud the quality, not to mention the combination daily on the weekends.

So now, Gannett has dropped another shoe. It has purchased a string of weeklies from Phil Power and will be running the Observer & Eccentric papers as well as owning The Detroit News and controlling the board of the JOA with a 3-2 vote. One of the more bizarre provisions of the JOA is that it allows the combined company to shut down one of the papers. But both companies would continue to share...

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