As Tony Ridder prepares to sell Knight Ridder, many in the company have wondered what C.L. Knight and his son John S. Knight would have thought about it. The KR-owned Akron Beacon Journal interviewed Cynthia Knight, the widow of John Knight’s son Lanny, who died in 2000 at age 75. “I was shocked and saddened that this marvelous empire that had begun here in Akron would no longer be,” Cynthia Knight said. “(Bernard Ridder, Tony’s father) and Jack (Knight) were of the same mind-set. They were dedicated to their empires,” she said when asked her opinion of Knight Ridder’s current management. “Other generations see things differently. That’s as far as I’ll go.”