Directors: I've got Gannett's next CEO, Part II

Maybe former USA Today Publisher Tom Curley is having too much fun as head of The Associated Press to return to Gannett as CEO -- a move I suggested Gannett's board of directors consider in this post.

Well, here's another candidate to succeed out-of-steam CEO Craig Dubow. It's Richard Zannino (left), who just announced his departure as CEO of Dow Jones & Co., now being taken over by Rupert Murdoch. Zannino, 49, is widely credited with making Dow Jones run more efficiently, the New York Times says today. Plus, he led a shift toward electronic media and away from print. "Under him," the NYT says, "Dow Jones bought MarketWatch.com and the half of the Factiva archive service that it did not already own, and sold several small newspapers.''

Zannino told the NYT that his legacy would be "getting us all to think like a media company rather than a newspaper company; viewing The Wall Street Journal as a franchise, as opposed to a newspaper."

Hint, hint, nudge, nudge, Gannett board. "I'd like to run another company,'' Zannino told the NYT. "I'd like to do it in the media business. I like the pace of the business. I like the reach of the business and influence of the business."

But time's already running out! "Some executive recruiters believe the departing Dow Jones leader won't have any trouble finding another CEO perch,'' the Wall Street Journal says today. "He can write his own ticket," said Hal Reiter, CEO of Herbert Mines Associates, a New York search firm specializing in retail and related industries. The WSJ says Reiter plans to pursue Zannino, who earlier held top finance and operating jobs at companies including Saks Holdings and Liz Claiborne.