Newspaper Patriarch J.B. McClatchy Dead At 85

By: E&P Staff James Briggs McClatchy died early Friday morning with his wife, Susan, at his side in his Carmichael, Calif., home, the McClatchy Co. announced. He was 85.

McClatchy was the patriarch who grew the family-owned McClatchy Co. from a small but well-respected regional newspaper group. He died as McClatchy remained well-respected -- but on the eve of becoming the nation's second-largest chain.

"Jim was one of the great leaders of The McClatchy Company," CEO and Chairman Gary Pruitt said Friday. "His contributions ranged from grand strategy to nuts-and-bolts decisions. Jim literally never stopped working to advance the traditions of independent, public service journalism."

In the old tradition of newspaper families, McClatchy -- the great grandson and namesake of the founding editor of the chain's flagship Sacramento Bee -- began his newspaper career at the Bee in 1947 as a general assignment and education reporter, according to an account on the Bee's Web site Friday afternoon by staff writers Elizabeth Hume and Steve Wiegand.

He worked in the McClatchy Washington, D.C., bureau where he met and, in 1958, married researcher Jean Fugitt. The marriage, which produced two sons, ended in divorce in 1973.

In 1980 he became chairman of the board, a post he would hold until 1987, and again from 1989, when his successor and brother C.K. McClatchy died suddenly, to 1995. He was named publisher of McClatchy Newspapers that year, a post he held until he retired from operational duties in 2005. He stepped down as a director in 2004.

McClatchy was a former president and director of the Inter American Press Association. He helped conceive the Declaration of Chapultepec, a 1994 proclamation committing governments to the principals of freedom of expression that has been signed by 19 heads of states.

Just last week, in recognition of numerous achievements, including civic commitment, the Board of Trustees of the California State University and California State University, Fresno, conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.

J.B. McClatchy is survived by his wife, Susan McClatchy, whom he married in 1980 and by sons William and Carlos McClatchy as well as his brother William Ellery McClatchy.

Funeral arrangements are pending, the company said Friday.