Ailing Oakland Tribune Sold : Media: William Dean Singleton, who controls a chain of Bay Area dailies, will buy the nation’s only major black-owned newspaper from Robert Maynard.

After struggling for years to survive in a depressed local economy, Oakland Tribune Publisher Robert Maynard announced Thursday that he has agreed to sell key assets of the 118-year-old daily to a suburban newspaper chain controlled by William Dean Singleton.

Although the Tribune will continue to publish, all 630 of its employees will be laid off and forced to apply for 250 new positions with Singleton’s Alameda Newspaper Group.

The sale does not include the Tribune Tower building and press facilities in downtown Oakland. The paper will now be printed at one of three Alameda Newspaper Group plants in the Oakland suburbs.

Maynard, the only black owner of a major metropolitan newspaper in the United States, portrayed the agreement as the only way to prevent the paper from closing. The Tribune was just days away from shutting down last August when it was rescued by the Freedom Forum, a media foundation run by former Gannett Chairman Al Neuharth. The paper has been desperately slashing staff and other costs for years.

“Today’s announcement assures the people of Oakland that an Oakland Tribune will continue,” Maynard said. “In an age when daily newspapers are disappearing from the American landscape, we are proud that this title will remain.”

But employees and media critics said it remains to be seen whether the Tribune will survive as an independent editorial voice or become a stripped-down sibling to Singleton’s papers in Hayward, Pleasanton, Alameda and Fremont.

“It would be sad indeed if it became an adjunct to the other papers,” said Tom Goldstein, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Journalism. “Oakland is a big city with enormous problems . . . and the Tribune was an important symbol as the only black-owned newspaper.”

Many employees and media analysts were surprised that Maynard, 55, would give up the fight after apparently being saved by the Freedom Forum’s $7.5-million investment.

His health apparently played a major role in the decision: He told employees that he would have to undergo a new round of chemotherapy for cancer.

Craig Staats, a Tribune reporter who is chairman of the paper’s Newspaper Guild unit, said staffers were “shocked and saddened at what’s happened.” Many heard the news on the radio before being formally informed Thursday morning.

“There was a lot of hugging and kissing and a few tears,” said Norman Golds, a veteran editor and former Newspaper Guild officer. He described the mood in the newsroom as one of “impending doom.”

Tribune staffers have faced repeated rounds of layoffs and salary cuts over the last several years as Maynard battled to stave off bankruptcy. The paper, which has a circulation of about 120,000, has been ravaged by the steady decline of Oakland as a retail and business center--a trend accelerated by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and the 1991 Oakland Hills fire.

But the Tribune has retained some of its editorial strength, winning a Pulitzer Prize for its photographic coverage of the earthquake.

Some civic leaders in Oakland, who have long feared that their city would become the largest in the nation without its own daily newspaper, were cautiously optimistic about the new Tribune.

But Mayor Elihu Harris, who was once a Tribune paperboy, expressed concern that Oakland would lose an important voice.

In previous coverage of Oakland, he said, Alameda Newspaper Group “has not demonstrated a great deal of sensitivity to the issues.” He added that most of the newspaper group’s coverage of Oakland has been unbalanced and negative.

Singleton, a youthful newspaper mogul whose far-flung holdings include the Denver Post and a clutch of suburban and small-town dailies in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, is known as a tough operator who doesn’t interfere with news operations but cuts costs to the bone.

He has made a specialty of buying troubled newspapers that other publishing groups won’t touch.

“Singleton has been an aggressive investor for the last decade,” noted Ken Noble, a New York media analyst. “He’s had his difficulties, but he’s managed to survive when others have not.”

By sharing facilities and staff with his other newspapers in the area, Noble noted, Singleton may be able to succeed where Maynard failed.

The new Tribune will be edited by David Burgin, who previously held the top jobs at the San Francisco Examiner and the Dallas Times-Herald. J. Allan Meath, president and chief executive of Alameda Newspaper Group, will be publisher. Neither Burgin nor Meath was available for comment.

The Tribune will continue publishing under its current management until Nov. 30. The deal is contingent on U.S. Department of Justice antitrust review.

The Oakland Tribune: A Chronology

1874: The Oakland Daily Tribune is founded.

1977: Combined Communications buys the Oakland Tribune from the Knowland family, which had owned it since 1915.

1979: Gannett Co. acquires the Tribune by merging with Combined Communications.

1983: A group headed by Robert Maynard and his wife, Nancy Hicks Maynard, buys the Tribune from Gannett, making it the only black-owned metropolitan daily newspaper in the country. Gannett loaned the group most of the $22-million purchase price.

April, 1990: The Tribune wins a Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography for its coverage of the October, 1989, Loma Prieta earthquake.

June, 1990: Plagued by steep declines in advertising and readership, Maynard announces that he will lay off 25% of the paper’s 725-member staff. Maynard takes a 20% pay cut.

January, 1991: Tribune employees agree to an 11% pay cut.

August, 1991: The Freedom Forum, a nonprofit foundation headed by former Gannett Chairman Allen Neuharth, rescues the Tribune from closure with a $7.5-million investment. Gannett agrees to accept preferred stock and $2.5 million in cash as payment for $31.5 million in debt.

Oct. 15, 1992: The Maynards say they are selling the 118-year-old newspaper to Alameda Newspaper Group, owned by William Dean Singleton.

Times staff writer Martha Groves contributed to this story.