More Buyouts at Singelton's Newspapers

[Media Megalomania] Alternative weekly The San Francisco Bay Guardian reports regularly on the activities of Dean Singleton and his MediaNews Group, parent company of The Salt Lake Tribune. That's because MediaNews owns several newspapers in California and especially in the heavily unionized Bay Area--including The Contra Costa Times, The Oakland Tribune and The San Jose Mercury News.

Late last month, MediaNews offered buyouts to 1,100 employees across the Bay Area. Pressure is building from corporate managers for workers to take the offers or face certain layoffs. And keep reading, for a choice and sympathetic quote from Singleton urging employees to stop living in the past, dammit!

(That's Singleton, on the right in the photo. He's crooning with the Beach Boys' Al Jardine, at some publisher's confab in 2005.)

So far, no similar bad news of buyouts, job cuts or downsizing has reached the Tribune. But even if it had, you wouldn't read about it in agitpropist Connie Coyne's Reader Advocate column--where it's noted every week that the Trib is always trying really, really, really hard to be a good product. So readers, quit bitching about persistent typos. And get out to the ass-end of your driveway to pick up your paper. (Holly Mullen)