MediaNews Misses Debt Payment: Deep, deep in debt and nearing default, the Times-Standard’s parent corporation has reached a deal with creditors that will allow it to (temporarily) forgo payments on its ghastly, ungodly, mid-bogglingly Himalayan debt, reports the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal has a story up too.
This article appears in When Weed is Legal.
Don’t miss this nut at the end of the NYT post:
Look the other way and it disappears. Nice trick!
The problem with MediaNews Group is not that its profit margins are abysmal. They’re not. CEO Dean Singleton perfected the art of operating newspapers on the cheap.
MNG’s problem is that it has too much debt. Singleton bought two large but declining dailies, the San Jose Mercury News and Contra Costa Times, at the worst possible time.
What’s tragic, in my opinion, is what is happening to the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chron may cease to exist within a year. I hope not.
Much of the Chron’s senior news staff this week accepted the buyout offers of its parent company, Hearst Corp. (an MNG business partner). If this becomes a trend, it means in addition to the dwindling number of professional journalists in our society, those who still have jobs will be less experienced with fewer veterans to mentor them.
Former Times-Standard Dave Rosso delivered a great speech on this subject yesterday at the annual League of Women Voters luncheon.