Executive privilege

The newspaper business is in trouble. And McClatchy President and CEO Gary Pruitt is blaming slow ad sales for that company’s falling profits. But after reading the Sacramento Business Journal’s Top 25 Book of Lists, one has to ask if the 19.2-percent raise Pruitt received last year has anything to do with it. In fact, five of the top 10 highest-paid executives of public companies in Sacramento come from the Bee’s parent company—and they all got hefty raises last year. How will these guys scrape by in such tough times for the newspaper business?