I just had coffee with David Mark, a former Pasadena Star-News reporter and now an editor at Politico.com. As we talked about our old paper (we worked at the PSN at different times), we got to wondering what Singleton's end-game is for his Southern California papers. After all, you can only cut so much before you either have to reinvest or start closing stuff down.
That got me to thinking, hasn't Singleton already closed papers in Southern California? The banners may remain, but the majority of the papers have become mere bureaus to a central office.
In a sense, Singleton shuttered the Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily news by folding them into the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. He closed the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin by folding it into the San Bernardino Sun. He closed the Long Beach Press-Telegram by folding it into the Daily Breeze.
How many papers are there in a LANG?
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3 comments:
Media News owns 27 daily (paid) newspapers in California — 9 are in SoCal. According to the announcement made by MN suits 2/29 in Long Beach, the 9 papers have been divided into 3 "clusters": Redlands Daily Facts, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, The San Bernardino Sun, Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News make up one cluster; the Torrance Daily Breeze and Long Beach Press-Telegram another and the LA Daily News, standing alone as the third.
Of course, your description of what the reality is spot on. MN sold the buildings that housed the individual papers, moved all printing to a centralized location, created universal copy desks and slashed the staffs — from publishers to clerks — eliminating "redundancies" to improve the company's profit margin.
The Star-News USED to be a GREAT newspaper until Dean Singleton destroyed it.
The Pasadena Star-News & Whittier Daily News were asborbed into the SGV Tribune in the early 1990's by its previous owner, Thomson. MN bought all three SGVN papers in 1996. Under MN, cost-cutting became more common. Now, all of SGVN is about to asborbed into the SB Sun, as these papers are placed in the Inland Empire division.
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