Judge: MediaNews Can Take Over 'Tribune'

By: Paul Foy, Associated Press Writer (AP) A judge ruled Monday that managers must give up control of The Salt Lake Tribune next week even as they continue a legal fight to buy back the newspaper.

U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart also ruled that MediaNews Group, the paper's corporate owner, can't sell any Tribune asset worth more than $250,000 without prior notice to the Tribune's former owners. It also must delay plans to build a new printing plant.

The order means the McCarthey family and its managers will have to turn over the newspaper to MediaNews on Aug. 1.

MediaNews, which owns The Denver Post, bought Utah's largest newspaper in January 2001 but has had no editorial and little financial control because of litigation.

"We take over the newspaper we've owned for nearly two years," MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton told The Associated Press on Monday. "Under our ownership and management, the Tribune will be a strong independent voice to everyone and beholden to no one."

The McCartheys are suing to buy back the Tribune under a disputed option that matures July 31, when the family's right to continue operating the paper expires. Those agreements were made five years ago when the Tribune was taken over by John Malone's cable TV giant, Tele-Communications Inc., in a stock swap.

In his decision, Stewart said the McCartheys "were largely in charge of their own destiny" and can't blame anyone else for losing control and ownership of the Tribune.

Stewart said he was forcing the McCarthey family only to "abide by the terms of contracts that it negotiated at arm's length, relying on sophisticated legal advice ... Plantiff's owners knew there was a risk in giving up legal ownership."

MediaNews bought the paper for $200 million from AT&T, which inherited the Tribune when it bought TCI in 1999.

Salt Lake City's other daily, The Deseret News, which has been published under a joint operating agreement (JOA) with the Tribune, has said the McCartheys' purchase option isn't valid without its consent. The News announced last month it will not give that approval.

The News is using its stake in a joint newspaper agency that prints, delivers, and handles advertising for the papers to keep MediaNews as its new partner. MediaNews has agreed to expedite the News' move to morning publication and make it a more equal partner in the JOA long dominated by the morning Tribune.

That plan may be delayed by Stewart's order that MediaNews cannot build a new printing plant until after the McCartheys' 120-day repurchase option period, which begins Aug. 1.

Tribune executives plan to appeal Stewart's refusal to extend a court injunction that kept them in control of the Tribune while the case is litigated. They also plan to appeal an earlier ruling by Stewart that gave the News the ability to veto the McCarthey family's ownership bid.

But MediaNews President Joseph J. Lodovic said that company executives plan to show up Aug. 1 to install new officers at the Tribune:

* Publisher Dominic Welch and Chief Operating Officer Randy Frisch will be fired as Singleton takes over as chairman and Lodovic as a board member of the newspaper agency board.

* Joseph Zerbey will take over as president of the agency. Zerbey, a former newspaper executive in Pennsylvania, has been named president and chief executive of Kearns-Tribune LLC, the holding company that owns the Tribune.