By Thomas Peele
Contra Costa Times
Published: 4/27/06
Excerpt:
The new owner of the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury
News, Denver publishing mogul William Dean Singleton, is a legendary
and at times polarizing figure in his industry.
Singleton rose from a teenage sportswriter at a tiny Texas weekly to
the chief executive of the privately held MediaNews Group, which owned
40 papers in nine states before its most recent acquisitions. Unlike
the heads of many other U.S. newspaper companies, he has never been
backed by family wealth.
MediaNews has kept struggling newspapers in business through austere
operations and pumped journalistic resources into its flagship Denver
Post and, recently, the Salt Lake Tribune. ...
In recent years Singleton has slowly moved toward a new image, said
Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute, a Florida-based journalism think
tank. "He is not as much a guy on the way up as industry statesman."
Singleton served a term as president of the Newspaper Association of
America in 2003, a trade group representing more than 90 percent of the
nation's dailies. "They wouldn't put somebody who is an embarrassment
to the industry in that position," Edmonds said. ...
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