CEO Of El Paso Times’ Parent Company Steps Down; Company Eyes Consolidating With Other Newspaper Groups

MediaNews Group, which publishes The Denver Post, The Salt Lake Tribune, the El Paso Times and nearly 50 other newspapers, may be merged with newspaper companies including Freedom Communications Inc, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Affiliated Media Inc, the parent of MediaNews, had filed for bankruptcy protection a year ago and emerged in March under the ownership of some lenders including investment firm Alden Global Capital. It owns 54 daily U.S. newspapers and says it is the No. 2 U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation.

Alden is also part of a group of lenders that owns Orange County Register publisher Freedom Communications, which emerged from bankruptcy protection in April.

The investment firm, part of a group of financial firms that won the auction of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, is looking to consolidate some of its newspaper holdings into a single company, the Wall Street Journal was told by sources.

Earlier this month, Dean Singleton, who had been CEO of MediaNews Group for 27 years, announced he was stepping down as CEO of MediaNews Group. Although there have been rumors he had been forced out by the company’s new owners, Singleton cited difficulties with traveling with multiple sclerosis and age.

He isn’t retiring but will serve as MediaNews’ executive chairman, as well as publisher for both the Denver Post and the Salt Lake Tribune. Read more about MediaNews Group board changes here.

Jody Lodovic, who served as MediaNews’ president and Singleton’s right-hand person for decades and who some saw as Singleton’s logical successor, resigned from his position and the MediaNews board, according to the blog report. Singleton declined to comment on the reasons for his departure, but a knowledgeable source suggested to the Denver Westword that Lodovic left the firm after learning he would not be made CEO.

MediaNews Group, like other newspaper groups, is still adjusting to the Internet and finding ways for readers to pay for content.

Singleton told the Denver Westword, that MediaNews continues to experiment with pay walls for online content, “But there’s no certainty pay walls are going to work,” he conceded, according to the blog report. “The best reason to have a pay wall is that it sends a message to consumers that all information is not free. And I think having sent the message for fifteen years that it is, we need to send a different message — that all information isn’t free. Although you can’t have a total pay wall, because we’re generating a lot of traffic, and a lot of revenue, for the content we have.”

The Nieman Journalism Lab’s take on the MediaNews changes is that Randall Smith, Alden?s CEO, is a shrewder and more sophisticated financial engineer than Lodovic was as Singleton?s second-in-command, and Alden?s ultimate interest is in earning a strong return on its investments, not in the future of journalism, so its strategy is at heart a financial one. And, yes, consolidation will come at the cost of jobs, as the NJL states.

John Paton, new CEO of the Journal Register Company, has his own ideas on how newspapers should change and adjust to the Internet.

“Stop listening to newspaper people,” Paton said. “We have had nearly 15 years to figure out the Web and as an industry we newspaper people are no good at it. No good at it at all. Want to get good at it? Then stop listening to the newspaper people and start listening to the rest of the world. And, I would point out, as we have done at JRC ? put the digital people in charge ? of everything.”

Read Paton’s full speech here.