Released: 08/05/2009

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI) today named Glen Nardi as president and publisher of the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss.

Since 2005, Nardi has been publisher of The Bellingham Herald in Washington. Previously, he was the senior vice president of operations at the San Jose Mercury News and has held several executive roles at large and midsized newspapers over his career. In Biloxi, he replaces Ricky Mathews, who is leaving the paper to accept a position outside of McClatchy. The change is effective Aug. 10.

"I want to thank Ricky for his extraordinary leadership of the Sun Herald and his service to the community, particularly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We admire him greatly and wish him all the best," said Gary Pruitt, McClatchy's chairman and chief executive officer. "At the same time, we are delighted to see Glen return to the South, where he has spent much of his distinguished newspaper career. Glen is an unflappable executive who will help continue the Sun Herald legacy of public service journalism and exemplary community service."

Nardi will lead his second McClatchy newspaper. He arrived as publisher of The Bellingham Herald in August 2005 when Knight Ridder, Inc., purchased the newspaper from the Gannett Co., Inc. He continued in that role with McClatchy's acquisition of the newspaper in 2006.

At The Bellingham Herald, Nardi was a talented publisher, leading a successful daily newspaper while managing a transformation of the business operations that included the sale and leaseback of the newspaper's downtown building, the outsourcing of printing to the nearby Skagit Publishing, the growth of online ad revenues and other accomplishments.

"When we talk about building a successful hybrid print and online news and advertising company for the 21st century, Glen Nardi has been at ground zero of that effort," said Bob Weil, McClatchy vice president, operations. "He’s just a terrific publisher with a deep reservoir of experience and knowledge acquired at a rich variety of newspapers."

Nardi, 58, was born in Philadelphia and raised in Miami. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1973 with a bachelor's degree in management. He spent the next seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, earned a master's degree in personnel management from George Washington University in 1979 and began his newspaper career in 1980 as a production manager at The Miami Herald. Four years later he moved to The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Newspapers where he held similar production management positions. In 1988, Nardi joined The State in Columbia, S.C., where he spent 16 years in a variety of management roles in production, IT, circulation and marketing. He served as vice president/operations for The State from 1995 to 2004 before moving to the San Jose Mercury News.

At both Knight Ridder and McClatchy, Nardi led and participated in companywide initiatives to improve operations and share best practices. As a publisher in Bellingham he was also active in the community. He served on the board of directors of the United Way, the Western Washington University Foundation and was a member of The Rotary Club of Bellingham.

"I really had a wonderful team in Bellingham and we accomplished a lot there,” Nardi said. "We've got a lot to be proud of."

Nardi and his wife, Holly, have seven adult children. Nardi said he was looking forward to returning to the South and new challenges in Biloxi.

"The one thing that immediately stands out about the Sun Herald is the special relationship it has with the community,"he said. "I think South Mississippi really saw how the newspaper supported it since Hurricane Katrina. The Sun Herald staff has a lot of character, and I look forward to joining them."

Mathews, meanwhile, concludes a storied Sun Herald career that began with an internship there in 1982. He rose through the ranks, holding several key department head jobs, before becoming publisher in 2001. In 2006, the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

In the days and weeks following the deadly hurricane, the Sun Herald never missed a day of publication, delivered thousands of papers free of charge to storm victims, provided continuous and vital news updates online and was a leading advocate for relief efforts and the rebuilding of the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

"There is no greater honor than serving as publisher of my hometown newspaper, which I've done for the past eight years," Mathews said. "But the thing that has been most satisfying in my time here has been the opportunity to lead and work alongside the finest team of professionals in the industry while serving one of the finest set of communities in the United States."

A search for a new publisher at The Bellingham Herald is under way.

About McClatchy

The McClatchy Company is the third largest newspaper company in the United States, with 30 daily newspapers, approximately 50 non-dailies, and direct marketing and direct mail operations. McClatchy also operates leading local websites in each of its markets which extend its audience reach. The websites offer users comprehensive news and information, advertising, e-commerce and other services. Together with its newspapers and direct marketing products, these interactive operations make McClatchy the leading local media company in each of its premium high growth markets. McClatchy-owned newspapers include The Miami Herald, The Sacramento Bee, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer, and The News & Observer (Raleigh).

McClatchy also owns a portfolio of premium digital assets, including 14.4% of CareerBuilder, the nation's largest online job site, 25.6% of Classified Ventures, a newspaper industry partnership that offers two of the nation's premier classified websites: the auto website, cars.com, and the rental site, apartments.com and 33.3% of HomeFinder, LLC which operates the real estate website HomeFinder.com. McClatchy is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.

When four McClatchey papers were going through training for a new SaxoTech editing system, Jerry Morehouse, senior editor of presentation and production at the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Georgia realized an opportunity to share production work across the new network. His idea is now called the "Virtual Newsroom Project." The project includes a collaboration between four similarly-sized McClatchey papers in the southeast: the Bradenton Herald in Fla.; the Ledger-Enguirer; the Telegraph in Macon, Georgia; and the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss. 

The goal was to create a universal copy desk delivery system that allows all editing and pagination processes to be completed for all news pages at one location or remotely at several. The ideal scenario would be for a story that all four papers planned to run to be edited just once. Morehouse noticed about 70 percent duplicatino in stories across these markets.  It didn't make sense to continue to duplicate efforts, he said, particularly given the fact that each of the four papers were experiencing shrinking newshole and reduced page counts.

The resulting virtual copy desk allowed for a slimmed down copy desk staff at each paper (mainly through attrition) and combined production of nation-world pages, business pages, and features pages.  What each paper retained was local control over all local copy and the design of each paper's front page and section fronts. "We are leaving ourselves room to have complete control locally of the pages before they go out the door,"  said Morehouse to an audience at the Poynter McCormick Big Ideas Conference this week. To help ensure local controls, a "hands-off" list was created before implementation.

Benefits from the project include the ability to reduce resources necessary in production while maintaining quality and investment in news gathering; the ability to provide back-up for copy editors and designers across markets; and opportunities for even more synergies in food columns, wine columns, football coverage, travel and food.

This is a live blog from the Poynter McCormick Big Ideas Conference in St. Petersburg, Fla. For more information on this idea, go to http://poynter.org/bigideas or #bigideas on Twitter. 

 

 

 

Published Jul 14 2009, 07:46 PM by Randy Bennett