Knight Ridder Bee-ing bought soon?

Yesterday was the deadline for the submission of bids for newspaper chain Knight Ridder, which is selling itself because, uhm, some company who bought a large stake in the company recently told them they should. And the frontrunner appears to be McClatchy, which is the owner of the Sacramento Bee, the Fresno Bee, &c., and has an annoying habit of naming its papers the [Something] Bee.

But wait! The (McClatchy-owned) Star-Tribune in Minneapolis says the likely winner is the McNews pairing of Gannett and MediaNews. And then, also, there’s the bid from Bain/Thomas H. Lee and a bunch of other private equity firms are also considering a buy.

Ugh… all of this makes my head spin. McClatchy is probably the best fit, since it’s headquartered in Sacramento, and already has the newspaper exec overhead, and could save a lot of money by slashing those jobs. That’s probably better for the journalism side, too, not that other people losing their jobs are going to feel good about it.

But, sadly, any scenario — one of the three buyers, or KR not selling at all — means that the Daily News is likely to close. That’s good for the freebie papers in town, I’d assume, but is bad for journalism and for the people over at 400 N. Broad and Philadelphia, since it’s currently the far more interesting paper of the two dailies. (Disclosure: It’s also bad for, uh, my dad, who works there.)

Let me submit a better way to save money: Get rid of FreeZee, the cartoon rapper on this post. I found him on an official Knight Ridder site. Here’s his story:

Rap star FreeZee’s hometown mansion could replace Goldenrod Elementary School that’s set to close because it’s old and unsafe. But to earn their new school, FreeZee sends the students on a cross-country scavenger hunt. As they follow FreeZee’s rap clues, they learn about their rights and roots, but if they get brain freeze, the hunt’s over and there’s no new school!

I have no idea what he teaches kids, but I bet he costs a lot.

Merrill Says McClatchy Most Likely Knight Ridder Winner [E&P]
Bain, Thomas H. Lee expected to bid for Knight Ridder newspaper group [Boston Business Journal]
Brain Freeze [Knight Ridder Productions]