Local News in Brief : Newspaper Officials Quit

Citing philosophical differences with their publication’s current owner, three members of the Newhall family--including crusty Scott Newhall, a journalistic legend in California--resigned Tuesday from Newhall Signal newspaper in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Publisher Tony Newhall announced his departure as well as those of his mother, Ruth, the editor; and his father, Scott, the paper’s former owner and currently editorial writer, who has long been famous for fulminating editorials that often were placed on the newspaper’s front page.

Scott Newhall, great-grandson of Henry Mayo Newhall, who assembled the giant Newhall ranch and founded the towns of Saugus and Newhall, bought the newspaper as a weekly in 1963, after 20 years as editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1978, the Newhall family sold a controlling interest in the Signal to Morris Newspaper Corp. of Savannah, Ga., but remained to manage the newspaper.

Tony Newhall said the resignations could be attributed to the difficulties of evolving “from a family-owned newspaper to a large corporation.” Representatives of Morris Newspaper Corp. could not be reached for comment.