Cooke to Retain Campbell as Daily News Publisher

Byron C. Campbell will remain president and publisher of the Daily News, the Van Nuys-based newspaper bought by sports entrepreneur Jack Kent Cooke last month for $176 million, a Daily News spokesman said Thursday.

The disclosure of Campbell’s plans followed a visit by Cooke to the newspaper’s plant, the new owner’s first since buying the Daily News from Chicago-based Tribune Co. Thomas E. Griffiths, the Daily News spokesman, also announced that Cooke is considering moving the newspaper from its plant on Sylvan Street near Van Nuys Boulevard to a new facility at an undetermined location.

The Daily News owned undeveloped land near Victory Boulevard and Sepulveda Avenue in Van Nuys that was intended for a new plant, but Tribune Co. did not sell that property to Cooke.

Although Cooke said previously that he wanted to retain Campbell, 52, there had been speculation that the newspaper executive would stay with Tribune Co. because of his close ties to the company. Campbell owns a substantial amount of Tribune stock, and his father, Chesser Campbell, was a president of the company.

Byron Campbell became publisher of the Daily News in August, 1983. Before that, he was president and publisher of the two Tribune Co. newspapers in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the News and Sun-Sentinel.

Griffiths said that Timothy M. Kelly, 38, will retain his job as editor of the Daily News.

Tribune Co., whose newspapers include the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News, sold the Daily News to Cooke to clear the way for its $510-million acquisition of Los Angeles television station KTLA Channel 5. Federal regulations prohibit common ownership of a television station and a newspaper in the same market.