The holding company for newspaper publisher MediaNews Group filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday and expects to emerge from bankruptcy in a month or two. Affiliated Media Inc., the privately held parent company for the owner of The Sun and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, as well as the Denver Post and 51 other daily newspapers, had said Jan. 15 it would be making the move. It said it had a deal with creditors that will cut its debt to $165 million from $930 million. Lenders, led by Bank of America, would get most of the company’s stock, wiping out shareholders such as Hearst Corp., which held a roughly 30 percent stake in MediaNews’ newspapers outside the San Francisco Bay area. MediaNews says its newspapers will not be affected by the Chapter 11 case and William Dean Singleton will remain chairman and CEO. Singleton and the company’s president, Joseph J. Lodovic IV, will own all class A shares, allowing them to choose a majority of the seven-member board of directors. ‘By aggressively facing the challenges of the newspaper business, we will continue to deliver high-quality journalism and will prepare our newspapers for a promising future,’ Singleton, who is also chairman of The Associated Press, said in a statement Friday. A bankruptcy court in Delaware has to approve the plan.
