Newspapers

CHICAGO - Tribune Co. has appointed the leader of its Chicago newspaper to oversee six other dailies as part of a reorganization that will eliminate more jobs at the troubled media company. The changes announced Monday will give Chicago Tribune publisher Tony Hunter responsibility for all Tribune Co. newspapers except the Los Angeles Times. The other newspapers reporting to Hunter are the Sun in Baltimore, the Morning Call in Allentown, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Hartford Courant, and the Daily Press in Newport News, Va. Tribune Co. also promoted Vince Casanova to be president and chief operating officer of Chicago Tribune Media Group.

Average weekday circulation at U.S. newspapers fell 5 percent during the six months that ended Sept. 30 from the same period last year, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported Monday. The decline compared with an 8.7 percent drop for the six months that ended March 30 compared with the year-before period. The Sunday circulation drop of 4.5 percent was also smaller than a 6.5 percent decline in the six months through March. The combined average weekday paid, print-edition circulation of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News fell 5.3 percent, to 342,361, from 361,481 in October 2009; the Sunday figure was down 4.3 percent, to 477,586, from 499,138 a year earlier.

The owners of the Daily News and Inquirer are appealing a Bankruptcy Court decision allowing the newspapers' secured creditors to use their IOUs in bidding to take over the newspaper company. But the appeal is unlikely to lead to any major delays in a proposed auction to bring the newspapers out of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. The company and its major creditors have agreed on a new schedule that calls for potential buyers to submit initial bids on Nov. 16, followed on Nov. 18 by a private auction where the interested buyers would have a chance to outbid each other.

HARRISBURG - Advocates for Pennsylvania newspapers and local governments clashed Thursday over a bill that would allow school districts, municipalities, and counties to publish legal notices on the Web instead of newsprint. Editors and publishers who testified for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association told the House Local Government Committee that the legislation would undermine an important source of revenue for their ailing industry and make it more difficult for Pennsylvanians who don't use the Internet to locate important public information.

HARRISBURG - Attorneys representing the state and two newspapers argued in federal court over whether the constitutional rights of witnesses to an execution are violated if they are unable to view the entire process. The Inquirer and the Harrisburg Patriot-News filed suit against the commonwealth last month in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania in an effort to allow witnesses to see the lethal injection process from the moment the condemned enters the chamber to the moment he or she is pronounced dead.

The newspapers are nothing more than litter, Caln Township officials say, and they're tired of seeing them pile up on driveways and lawns. The papers, on the other hand, have their constitutional right to publish. No Pentagon Papers case, it is a feisty little government-press dispute. Caln officials are looking into ways to restrict distribution of the Pennysaver and the Village News within the township, asserting that the publications are a nuisance. The newspapers, which are delivered free, collect on people's property, aggravating residents and cluttering the township, township manager Samuel Moore said in an interview last week.

The 18-floor office tower that is home to The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, and philly.com is inching closer to sale. Philadelphia Media Network, owner of the two daily newspapers and the online portal, is reviewing an unspecified number of bids for the 526,000-square-foot building at 400 N. Broad St. Mark Block, PMN's vice president for external affairs, said Thursday a decision "based on the best offer" would be forthcoming "sooner rather...

WHEN George W. Bush was president, many of us blamed him for all the problems our country had. We believed Barack Obama could stop the hemorrhaging of America's reputation abroad and provide the leadership we needed to reinvigorate our economy, create jobs, and modernize our approach to education, health care, energy, human rights and foreign policy. He was the presidential candidate whose ideals were so appealing and his commitment so convincing that even many Republicans believed he really could make a difference.

As a result of the high prices paid for early American newspapers, fake copies of the Pennsylvania Gazette have been turning up at small auctions in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Texas and Illinois. The Sept. 19, 1787, Pennsylvania Packet, which carried the first printing of the Constitution of the United States, has sold for as much as $110,000. Five other newspapers printed the Constitution that same day, among them the Pennsylvania Gazette. These other papers do not have the eye appeal or the romance of the Packet, which was printed by John Dunlap, the official printer for the Constitutional Convention.

Raymond J. McBride Sr., a founding member of Philadelphia Mailers Union Local 10, died Thursday. He was 81 and lived in Williamstown, N.J. Born in South Philadelphia, McBride was the fourth of 13 children of John and Alice Joy McBride. When a McBride man went out into the world, he frequently found himself working for a newspaper. His father was a truck driver who delivered newspapers for the Philadelphia Record. Raymond, along with a couple of his brothers, were hired as mailers.