Free Republic

The Bay Area News Group announced Thursday that its newspapers will now operate under a single, common news management team under the direction of David J. Butler, editor of the San Jose Mercury News and vice president for news for its parent, MediaNews Group. The announcement was made by Mac Tully, publisher of the newspapers and group vice president for BANG. In addition to the Mercury News, the newspapers include the Contra Costa Times, the San Mateo County Times, the Oakland Tribune and various sister daily and weekly papers.

There's plenty of hand wringing in the press about why the state still doesn't have a budget six weeks into the fiscal year. But one member of the media is delighting in the standoff and playing an oversized role in keeping it going: a 39-year-old conservative blogger who spends hours of his workday in bed typing away on an aging Dell laptop, hundreds of miles from the Capitol. Jon Fleischman has never aspired to be a reporter. "Fair and balanced" is decidedly not his thing. "I don't pretend to be objective," the longtime GOP activist said last week in his...

Contra Costa Times Editor Chris Lopez was replaced Friday after more than six years at the publication, the newspaper announced. Lopez's responsibilities will be assumed by Contra Costa Times Executive Editor Kevin Keane. Keane, 48, has been an editor at MediaNews for nine years, most recently as the executive editor of ANG Newspapers. He retains oversight of MediaNews' East Bay editorial operations. "As we consolidate the operations of Contra Costa and ANG newspapers in the Bay Area, there are some positions that have become redundant, and, unfortunately for Chris, his is one of those positions," said John Armstrong, who oversees...

A federal judge issued an order Friday that allows the sale of four newspapers, including the Times, to MediaNews Group Inc., pending a separate decision by the U.S. Department of Justice. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston clears a major obstacle that could have stalled the sale of the Times, San Jose Mercury News, Monterey County Herald and St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press. San Francisco businessman Clinton Reilly had filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the deal in which Sacramento-based McClatchy Co. would sell the papers to Denver-based MediaNews. The judge denied a request by Reilly for a...