Was Knight Ridder chairman and Bay Area resident Tony Ridder smart to have sold off his company’s newspapers when he did? Or should he have continued to fight on? The Sacramento-based McClatchy Co., which bought KR’s 32 dailies for $4.5 billion and kept 20 of them, continues to see its stock fall. On Monday, McClatchy stock hit a 52-week low. According to the AP, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services have placed McClatchy on a “negative watch” due to difficult industry conditions. S&P said the move “underscores our increasing concerns that McClatchy will not achieve credit measures aligned with the current rating within the near term.”