McClatchy chief executive Gary Pruitt (pictured) has provided an explanation as to why, after buying the Knight Ridder chain, he didn’t want to keep KR’s flagship newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News. Pruitt told the McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee in a story published this morning (March 15) that he subjected every one of KR’s 32 papers to a rigorous analysis and was surprised the Merc didn’t make the cut. “In many ways, it’s a big, rich market,” Pruitt told the Bee’s Dale Kasler. “I think the San Jose Mercury News will have a good future and will rebound. But we felt long term … it wouldn’t have the same characteristics or growth profiles the other markets would.” He said that because he didn’t want to keep the Merc, he thought he ought to sell the other KR papers in the Bay Area, too, to provide a buyer with a cluster of papers. [CCTimes writer Tony Hicks finds some humor in the paper’s sale] [Philly businessman wants to buy KR papers in his town, have a Green Bay Packers-styel ownership] [Merc gets letters from readers about sale]