It looks like GateHouse Media has done something pretty smart: the community newspaper chain has named Kirk Davis (right) as its president and chief operating officer, the number-two position in the company. Davis, who currently runs GateHouse Media New England, will be replaced by his own number-two, Rick Daniels, a former top executive at the Boston Globe.
GateHouse owns some 400 newspapers nationwide, and more than 100 in Eastern Massachusetts. The company is currently involved in a nasty legal dispute with the New York Times Co. over GateHouse’s and the Globe’s competing online strategies.
I’ve interviewed Davis several times over the years, including, most recently, this past fall for a piece I wrote for CommonWealth Magazine. He is smart, passionate and an inveterate optimist.
I’m not sure anyone is up to the task of saving GateHouse — or, for that matter, the newspaper industry in general. But Davis is not someone I’d bet against. (Thanks to Walter Brooks of Cape Cod Today for blasting out the press release.)
Photo of Davis is from a video on the GateHouse New England Web site, which you can see here.
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Your assessment is good. The president of GateHouse for New England is most competent, too
With so many dailies and weeklies in Massachusetts, a death of this newspaper group will further bleed what remains of the states print news diversity in this reinvention and downsizing media era.Thos who depend on investigative journalism for accountability and oversight in the areas covered by Gatehouse continue to be concerned and hope for survival.