San Jose Mercury-News (via Sirotablog):

A labor union representing workers at nine Knight Ridder newspapers announced Thursday that it was trying to put together an employee-backed bid for the nine papers.

The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America has retained two advisory firms -- Duff & Phelps, a Chicago-based investment bank, and Ownership Associates, a Cambridge, Mass.-based consulting firm -- to pursue the possibility of a buyout of the papers. According to Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley, the union has been in contact with ``worker friendly'' private equity funds that were possibly interested in backing a bid.

But, it didn't work out this time (LA Times):

Knight Ridder Inc., which put itself up for sale last month, has rebuffed an initial effort by union workers to bid on some of its 32 daily newspapers.

San Jose-based Knight Ridder and its investment bank, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., told the Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America that the company would only consider bids for all of its assets, union President Linda Foley said Thursday.

The Olympian wasn't part of the deal, but if a newspaper union did end up buying the our paper, it wouldn't be the first time a union ran a newspaper in western Washington. The Seattle Union Record was a strike paper run by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild during the Times/PI newspaper strike in 2000/2001.