John Curley Announces Retirement; McCorkindale Succeeds as CEO
ARLINGTON, VA – Gannett Co., Inc. announced today at the company’s annual meeting that Douglas H. McCorkindale would succeed John J. Curley as chief executive officer on June 1.
Curley will continue as chairman until he retires early next year when he is 62. McCorkindale, 60, is president and vice chairman. He will continue to hold those titles until Curley retires when McCorkindale becomes chairman, president and CEO.
In announcing the change, Curley said, “Doug McCorkindale and I have worked together for almost 30 years. I am extremely confident Gannett will continue to prosper under his leadership.”
Curley said he has no special plans other than “to do what I want to do when I want to do it” rather than meet a rigid schedule.
McCorkindale, after graduating from Columbia University and its Law School, began his career as an attorney with Thacher, Proffitt & Wood in New York. He joined Gannett in 1971 as general counsel and secretary. In 1977 he became a senior vice president/finance and law and a member of the Gannett Board of Directors. Two years later he became Gannett’s chief financial officer and a member of the Office of Chief Executive. A year later he added the duties as president of the Diversified Media Division.
In 1983 McCorkindale became executive vice president, chief financial officer and president of the Diversified Media Division. A year later he was named vice chairman and chief financial officer, and in 1985 McCorkindale became vice chairman and chief financial and administrative officer. In 1997 he became vice chairman and president.
Curley graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., in 1960 and three years later got a master’s degree from Columbia University after serving as a lieutenant in the U. S. Army. He joined Gannett as an editor in Rochester, N. Y., in 1969 after working for The Associated Press in New York and New Jersey and for newspapers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He ran Gannett News Service in Washington from 1974 to 1980 and then was publisher of the News-Journal in Wilmington, Delaware, before returning to Washington in 1982 to become the first editor of USA TODAY.
In 1983 he became president of the Gannett Newspaper Division and a member of the Gannett Board of Directors. A year later he became president and chief operating officer of the company and in 1986 he became chief executive officer of Gannett, continuing as president. When then chairman Allen H. Neuharth retired in April 1989 Curley became chairman, president and chief executive. He continued as president until September 1997 when McCorkindale became president.
Gannett Co., Inc. is an international news and information company that publishes 74 daily newspapers in the USA, including USA TODAY, the nation’s largest-selling daily newspaper. The company also owns a variety of non-daily publications and USA WEEKEND, a weekly newspaper magazine. Newsquest plc, a wholly owned Gannett subsidiary acquired in mid-1999, is one of the largest regional newspaper publishers in England with a portfolio of more than 180 titles. Its publications include 11 daily newspapers with a combined circulation of approximately 450,000. Newsquest also publishes a variety of non-daily publications, including Berrows’ Worcester Journal, the oldest continuously published newspaper in the world. Gannett also operates 22 television stations and is an Internet leader with sites sponsored by most of its TV stations and newspapers including USATODAY.com, one of the most popular news sites on the Web.