Many of the newspapers William Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group owns likely aren't known outside the county where they publish.

The Deming Headlight in Deming, N.M.; the Humboldt Sun in Winnemucca, Nev., to name a few.

But roll about 150 small and regional papers together and top them off with major dailies like The Denver Post, The Oakland Tribune and The Los Angeles Daily News and you're looking at the seventh-largest newspaper chain in the country.

Singleton, 47, is a Texas native who runs the Post and MediaNews Group from its corporate headquarters in Denver. He and partner Richard B. Scudder, 87, formed MediaNews Group in 1983 to purchase and manage U.S. newspaper companies.

Forbes Magazine in July said the chain had $1 billion in revenues but gave the architect of the empire a description as a "notorious bad boy of cheapskate publishing."

Not surprisingly, he's labeled more favorably in the Post, which in May called him the "Clark Kent, the Superman of the American newspaper industry."

MediaNews only recently diversified its media holdings with the acquisition of a television station in Anchorage and several radio stations.

MediaNews Group had total assets of $1.14 billion as of Sept. 30, according to company documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, MediaNews Group recorded a net loss of $4.5 million on revenues of $222.4 million. For the same period a year ago, the group had net income of $1.5 million on revenues of $228 million.