Plea for bond is too late, Trib says

A request that the Salt Lake Tribune post a $12.5 million bond to its new owner has too little evidence and comes too late, Tribune managers say.

Wednesday's filing by Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. is in response to an August request by the paper's new owner, MediaNews Group. The Denver-based company whose December purchase of The Salt Lake Tribune is being hotly disputed in federal court, asks that U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart require the managers to secure money it fears could be lost in coming months.

But managers say MediaNews has had seven months and six briefs to raise the motion and attorneys "did not spend even a stray footnote on the need for security."

"The tardy submission speaks volumes to the question of whether (MediaNews) are at risk of loss," the brief states.

The newspaper's management company sued MediaNews in federal court last year, claiming that a management agreement and an option agreement signed in 1997 give it the right to control the newspaper in spite of its owner.

MediaNews claims the managers have "taken advantage of that control repeatedly to act, or fail to act, in ways that are directly contrary both to the express wishes and to the benefit of the MediaNews defendants."

MediaNews claims the managers' refusal to buy a portion of its newsprint from MediaNews at reduced prices and to adopt other "cost reduction and revenue enhancement measures" has cost $2.5 million.

The company also claims the managers could try to depress the value of the newspaper by another $10 million in order to buy it back next year at a reduced price.

According to the filing Wednesday, MediaNews has nothing to fear. AT&T, the Tribune's former owner, has agreed to reimburse MediaNews up to $26 million if Tribune publishers pay less than the $200 million MediaNews paid for the Tribune last December.

"In other words, AT&T has already agreed to give (MediaNews) the security they seek here," the brief states.

Tribune managers have long taken issue with MediaNews, claiming it has tried to "damage" the paper by making changes to a joint operating agreement between the Tribune and the Deseret News.

In February, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell ruled it was improper for MediaNews to remove Tribune representatives from the Newspaper Agency Corp., which manages the JOA, and replace them with MediaNews representatives.

An appeal of that decision is pending an appeal to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.