Jay Rosen (pictured), a New York University journalism professor and author of the PressThink blog, has a suggestion for the employees of the Knight Ridder papers that McClatchy didn’t want to keep: Find some local people who will buy your newspaper from McClatchy. “Think about it, Duluth, and Contra Costa: who is there to get orders from? Who is going to tell you: no, you can’t use your newspaper (your column) for that?” Rosen continues: “You can even get involved in the events that might bring a better buyer to the fore. What are the bosses going to do, get mad and sell you?” Anybody listening in Walnut Creek? Palo Alto? Monterey? San Jose?

Rosen includes an insightful comment from former Merc tech gossip columnist Chris Nolan (pictured at right), who looked over the list of supporters on the savethemerc.com site that was set up by employees and Guild leaders. “The short version is that there is no one on that the list who can get anything done in Silicon Valley. It’s a list of San Jose movers and shakers, mostly civic and political activists. No John Chambers, no Andy Grove, no John Doerr. Those folks could care less about the Merc. They read News.com and the WSJ,” wrote Nolan, whose work these days can be found at www.spot-on.com.