Singleton

Dean Singleton is no longer running the MediaNews Group chain of 56 newspapers, such as the San Jose Mercury News, but he’s still publisher of the Denver Post and the company’s executive chairman. And, according to a profile in the September issue of Harper’s Magazine, he’s using his position in Colorado to push his political views.

The Harpers story by Dave Sirota says the Denver Post has become so bastardized that it ran a profile of Singleton that called him “the Superman of the American newspaper industry.”

Here are the links:

• If you want to pay $16.97 for a one-year subscription to Harpers to read the story, here’s the link.

• In Humboldt, Calif., where Singleton ran a competitor out of business and then gutted the newsroom of the paper he controlled, a blog has posted this review of the Harpers article that uses an unkind term to describe Singleton. Apparently people don’t like him in that town.

• Here’s an article Sirota wrote in the August edition of Harpers about Singleton, titled “The Citizen Kane Era Returns.” It gives a taste of the complaints Sirota has about Singleton.

• The Denver Post’s longtime TV columnist, Joanne Ostrow, defended Singleton against Sirota’s criticisms. Ostrow points out that Sirota’s contract with the paper was terminated.