Early this morning, the Knight Ridder board accepted a McClatchy offer to buy the company for $4.5 billion, and McClatchy said it would sell 12 Knight Ridder papers, including former flagship San Jose Mercury News and the two Philadelphia papers, reports Editor & Publisher (via MediaBuyerPlanner). McClatchy said the 12 papers are located in cities that "do not fit the company's longstanding acquisition criteria, chiefly involving growing markets."

Following the purchase of Knight Ridder and the sale of the 12 papers, McClatchy will own 32 dailies and roughly 50 non-dailies. The other papers to be sold are Akron Beacon Journal, Wilkes Barre Times Leader, Aberdeen American News, Grand Forks Herald, Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, Duluth News Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Knight Ridder began considering a sale in late 2005, after Private Capital Management LP, the company's largest shareholder, began to demand that Knight Ridder do so, pointing out that the company had failed to significantly lift its long-sagging share price through measures such as a stock buyback, raising its dividend, making several newspaper transactions and cutting jobs.