At 3:21 p.m. today (April 26), the Chron’s Carolyn Said posted the following on sfgate.com: “Denver’s MediaNews Group agreed to buy the San Jose Mercury News and the Contra Costa Times –the Bay Area’s second and third largest newspapers — as well as two other newspapers from McClatchy Co. in a deal valued at $1 billion, the companies said today. New York’s Hearst Corp., publisher of The Chronicle and SFGate, is providing financial backing to MediaNews in exchange for an equity stake in that company’s newspaper operations outside the Bay Area. … It was unclear what form Hearst Corp.’s stake in other MediaNews properties would take. MediaNews owns 40 papers in 11 states.”