MediaNews' Singleton named next chief of Associated Press

NEW YORK — The board of directors of The Associated Press has elected William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and CEO of the privately held newspaper publisher MediaNews Group Inc., which owns the Salt Lake Tribune, to be its next chairman, the news cooperative announced Thursday.

Singleton becomes vice chairman of the AP immediately and is expected to succeed Burl Osborne, publisher emeritus of The Dallas Morning News, as chairman at the AP's annual meeting next May. Osborne will have completed five years as chairman.

The AP's board also voted to impose no general assessment increase on the basic services for AP newspaper and broadcast members for 2007, the first time since 1971 there will be no increase.

The announcements followed a two-day meeting of the AP's board at its headquarters in New York.

Singleton, 54, was first elected to the AP board in 1999. He founded MediaNews Group, one of the largest privately owned newspaper companies in the United States, in 1983.

"The Associated Press is fortunate to have in Dean another independent leader passionate about the historic role of AP and its journalism as well as the opportunities for the media in the digital era," said Thomas Curley, AP's president and CEO. "Burl has provided marvelous guidance during a CEO transition and in defining the steps AP must take toward becoming an electronic cooperative."

Singleton said in an interview that discussions about strategies for expanding the online operations of newspapers and the AP dominated the two days of board meetings.

"The issues that our newspapers are facing are the same issues that AP is facing — how we navigate from a print-only world to a print/online world, and how we find ways to monetize our news online," Singleton said.

"While The Associated Press has worked collectively on news coverage since its founding, the newspaper industry hasn't worked collectively because they didn't need to," Singleton said. "They operated in their own local markets with their own local issues. Online takes us beyond geographic boundaries, and for the first time newspapers must work collectively to build the online model to its full potential."

He added that he believes the AP "will be the key to pulling the industry together so that they work collectively."