Bay Area dailies may be illegally cooperating

The two companies that control all the daily newspapers in the Bay Area, Hearst (The Chronicle) and MediaNews (The San Mateo County Times, San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, weekly Pacifica Tribune and other dailies in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties) have been planning to cooperate on national ad sales and distribution.  A temporary restraining order has stopped that for the time being by a judge who says that new evidence in the case indicates that such cooperation may be illegal, reports the Chronicle.

MediaNews purchased the Mercury News and Contra Costa Times from McClatchy Co. for $736.8 million in April. As part of the deal, Hearst bought the Monterey Herald and St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press for $263 million and promised to transfer them and other assets to MediaNews in exchange for a 30 percent share of MediaNews’ non-Bay Area newspapers. Illston questioned whether the proposed business cooperation between MediaNews and Hearst was a necessary part of Hearst’s decision to buy into MediaNews.

Lawyers for Hearst and MediaNews wrote in court briefs that the companies have made no secret of their desires to pursue legal cooperation that can help both become more efficient. But they said they have no plans to act before the antitrust suit is resolved.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This isn’t exactly a Coastside story, but it is about the weird media bubble we live in. This story is news in every community in the Bay Area, except the Coastside.  With exception of the County Times’s Julia Scott, the dailies seldom deign to write about us.  This is exacerbated MediaNews sharing its stories among its papers.  I have no idea what folks in Oakland make of Julia’s stories about life on the coast.