Scripps-Howard to Buy Some Hearst Weeklies

Scripps-Howard, a Cincinnati-based newspaper company, said Thursday that it has agreed to buy a group of community newspapers in southeastern Los Angeles County from Hearst Corp. for an undisclosed amount. Scripps-Howard said it hopes to close the sale by Aug. 5.

The deal also includes the Hillsborough Community Newspapers, a group of community papers near Tampa, Fla.

The California papers form the southeast division of Hearst Community Newspapers, a group of 13 weekly newspapers distributed free to such communities as Compton, Downey, Bellflower, Lakewood, Long Beach and Huntington Park. The group has a circulation of about 200,000, most of which is delivered free.

Precisely which papers are included in the sale, however, remains unclear, even to some of the executives involved. For instance, employees have not been told whether the sale includes the six-day-a-week Southeast News Signal, which serves South Gate, Huntington Park, Downey and Maywood.

One longtime employee of the southeast papers, who asked for anonymity, said that the weekly papers in the group “were holding their own” financially but that the daily Southeast News Signal was struggling.

Officials at Scripps said Thursday that they could not identify all of the papers involved until the sale is completed. Hearst officials in New York did not return calls from a Times reporter.

Employees at the southeast newspapers were told in a meeting Wednesday that Hearst will transfer some employees to its other community papers in the San Fernando Valley. Scripps-Howard will interview the remaining employees before deciding which to retain, several employees said.

Those employees not hired or transferred will be laid off and receive severance pay, according to those who attended the meeting.

The interview requirement prompted speculation among some employees that Scripps-Howard may close some of the papers or at least consolidate business operations.

Scripps-Howard already owns about a dozen weekly papers in the southeast, including the Alhambra Post-Advocate, East Los Angeles Tribune, Fullerton News Tribune, Post-Advocate/San Gabriel Progress and the West Whittier Independent.

The Hearst papers in the southeast division include the Lakewood Herald American, the North Long Beach Herald American, the Bellflower-Paramount Herald American, the Compton-Lynwood Herald American, the Downey Herald American, the Norwalk Herald American, the Community Advocate in Artesia-Cerritos, the Community Advocate in Cypress and La Palma, the Bell-Maywood Industrial Post, the Bell Gardens Review, the Huntington Park Bulletin, the Hawaiian Gardens Community Advocate and the South Gate Press.