Freedom Communications Inc.

New OC Register Owners Sell Off Colorado Springs Gazette, Further Shredding the Company's Libertarian Legacy

Yesterday, the Orange County Register announced that their newish owner, Aaron Kushner, had decided to sell off the Colorado Springs Gazette, which for years was the second-largest paper owned Freedom Communications, the former parent company of the Reg founded by libertarian crank R.C. Hoiles. Sinc ... More >>

As Goes the R.C. Hoiles Family's Freedom Communications, So Goes FreedomPolitics.com

The guiding philosophy of FreedomPolitics.com "was developed by Raymond Cyrus Hoiles, founder of what is today the nation's 12th largest media company, Freedom Communications Inc., based in Irvine," reads the liberty lovun political site. But the family of the late R.C. Hoiles abandoned the media ... More >>

The Orange County Register Steals Oakland Raiders' Punchline

May I briefly steal you away from your present obsession about Janet Jackson bitch-slapping Paris and Kristen Stewart's untimely cheating?Okay, Orange Countians, you can finally sigh in relief: Irvine-based Freedom Communications and its Orange County Register are now officially in the hands of Bost ... More >>

Freedom Communications Lays Off 66 Workers

The other shoe has dropped in Freedom Communications' recent flurry of newspaper sales--including that of Santa Ana flagship the Orange County Register. Actually, the pink slips 66 employees just received may have to eventually be fashioned into shoes given the shitty job market they are entering.

Freedom Communications Journalist's Freedom to Communicate Challenged in Facebook Flap

The announced sale of the Orange County Register understandably caused ripples in the Grand Avenue newsroom as well as others in the Freedom Communications fold that Aaron Kushner's group is acquiring from the Irvine media company. But when one ripple washed onto a Freedom journalist's personal Face ... More >>

Orange County Register Sold to Boston Investor

Freedom Communications of Irvine is selling the Orange County Register, six other dailies and other properties to a Boston investor, according to published reports.He is Aaron Kushner of 2100 Trust LLC, which previously tried to purchase the Boston Globe. The deal involving Santa Ana's daily, which ... More >>

Freedom Fire Sale Continues as Register Owner Dumps Florida and North Carolina Papers

Fresh off a flurry of sales of newspapers in Texas and the Midwest, the Orange County Register's owner Freedom Communications reveals it has sold 20 more papers in Florida and North Carolina.

[UPDATED with Texas Sales:] Freedom Communications Sells MORE Papers That Are Not the Register

UPDATE, MAY 18, 12:32 P.M.: The Freedom Communications' fire sale continues.A day after announcing the sale of four Midwest newspapers, the Irvine-based parent company of the Orange County Register disclosed it is also dumping all its Texas papers.

Register Either Close or Extremely Close to Being Bought by Union-Tribune Publisher

The Orange County Register is either extremely close or not-yet extremely close to being acquired by the publisher of the San Diego Union-Tribune, according to published reports.The Santa Ana daily has been on the block for years, even before its owner, Freedom Communications of Irvine, declared ban ... More >>

Orange County Register's Freedom Overlords Sell 8 TV Stations to Conservative Concern

Freedom Communications, the Irvine-based media company whose flagship newspaper is the Orange County Register of Santa Ana, has completed the sale of its eight television stations to the company that famously ordered its ABC affiliates not to show an April 30, 2004, Nightline tribute to American sol ... More >>

Orange County Register Eyed by Publisher South of the Border

​Someone south of the border may buy the Orange County Register.Clean up in whichever aisles old coot heads just exploded in.That's south of the Orange County border, not the Mexican one.

OC Register Carriers Lawsuit Finally Delivers an Ending

​Freedom Communications has agreed to kick in an additional $15.5 million for former Orange County Register newspaper carriers to once and for all settle a nine-year legal battle that ultimately cost the Irvine-based media company $30 million.

Orange County Register Business Coverage Hits TheStreet

​It's Business Monday at the Orange County Register, but you've got wonder if the section's editors, reporters and columnists are looking over their shoulders following a recent business decision by the Santa Ana daily.Freedom Communications, the Irvine company that owns the Register and mo ... More >>

Jose Solorio and Tony Mendoza, Assembly Democrats, Blasted for "Anti-Business" Bills

Solorio​A proposed law authored by one Orange County assemblyman is being called a big favor for big labor, while legislation from another has powerful California business interests lined up against it.The legislators are Democrats and California Latino Legislative Caucus leaders Jose Solorio of S ... More >>

[UPDATED with Tribune Talks Back On:] Sale Could Lead to One Company Owning All SoCal Dailies

​UPDATE, JUNE 16, 9:22 A.M.: Now that merger talks with MediaNews have broken down, Irvine-based owner of the Orange County Register Freedom Communications has revived negotiations with that other Southern California newspaper  publisher.No, not the Los Angeles investment company that bought ... More >>

Extreme Pick-Up Rate Roils Orange County Register

​Reality television has been blamed for a coarsening of society, the death of (well) scripted programming and my reason for being.It's also playing a role in the disappearance of the Orange County Register. No, this is not another post about the financial woes of Freedom Communications, the Regist ... More >>

Register Sale Could Lead to One Company Owning All SoCal Dailies: Media Expert

​A newspaper journalist-turned-Silicon Valley media mogul sets up the dominoes which, once tipped over, could lead "a single entity" to "publish all the dailies from the Tehachapi Mountains at the north end of metro L.A. to the Mexican border."At the middle of it all is the pending sale of the Ora ... More >>

New Rumors of a Merger Between Freedom and MediaNews

​Yesterday, Dean Singleton, the controversial chairman and CEO of MediaNews Group, which owns dozens of newspapers including the Denver Post and LA Daily News, announced he was stepping down from his longtime post. Now, the Wall Street Journal is reporting, two new members of the board of director ... More >>

Orange County Register Owner Freedom Communications' Papers, TV Stations for Sale

​Update, November 18, 5:20 p.m.: A media industry watcher suggests Freedom Communications may have a strategy behind what would seem to be a counter-intuitive move to sell the modern-day equivalent of buggy whips, daily newspapers."Might the strategy be to sell some of the properties, keep othe ... More >>

Dreaming of the Parts of Freedom CEO Mitch Stern's Interview That Weren't Print to Fit

​Now that he's unloaded the U-Haul and settled into his new office in Irvine, Freedom Communications CEO Mitch Stern sat down for an interview with a reporter from his media company's flagship newspaper, the Orange County Register.This is important to Grand Avenue wags as Freedom emerges from banr ... More >>

Under New Management! OC Register No Longer a Family Affair

​​It came not with a bang but a whimper. At around noon today, the Orange County Register officially announced that four score minus five years of ownership by the fracturing Hoiles family is now no more. Parent company Freedom Communications will continue to have a stake in the paper but not wi ... More >>

Reports of Freedom Paper's Death May Have Been Premature

​Perhaps a daily newspaper the Orange County Register's corporate parent planned to kill will rise from the ashes.The Arizona daily does circulate just outside Phoenix, after all.

OC Register Overlord Freedom Communications Kills a Paper

​Officials from Irvine-based Freedom Communications, whose flagship newspaper is the Orange County Register, told employees of Arizona's East Valley Tribune newspapers that they will cease operations on Dec. 31.Freedom's official announcement is contained in this company news release. It's also ba ... More >>

Porn Proudly Enters Register Coverage of Freedom Bankruptcy

Perhaps this art photo by Nick Gaines is an example of the porn the newspaper company is trying to hide.​Orange County Register business writer Mary Ann Milbourn boldly got out front of the story about her corporate overlords at Irvine-based Freedom Communications being accused of trying to keep d ... More >>

Taco Bell Crime of the Week!

I'd love to link to this week's edition--a break-in at a Taco Bell in Celina, Ohio, wherever the hell that is--but the newspaper that reported the story has a pay wall prohibiting non-subscribers from reading stories on its website. Strangest part? Its publisher is Freedom Communications, parent com ... More >>

Freedom Communications/OC Register Woes: Financial or Political? [UPDATED WITH BANKRUPTCY CONFIRMATION]

​With the Orange County Register's parent company Freedom Communications of Irvine confirming it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (something deemed inevitable in Nick Schou's Navel Gazing item yesterday), one would assume this to be a financial matter. But according to several reader ... More >>

Bigger PR Nightmare: Henry Nicholas III or OC Register?

FishBowlLA.com connects the dots today between indicted Broadcom co-founder Henry Nicholas III, the Orange County Register's parent company and the "PR guy" for both of them: Sitrick & Co. does PR for Freedom Communications, Inc.Mike Sitrick is also the PR guy for Dr. Henry Nicholas III, the for ... More >>

Source: 5% Across the Board Pay Cut for All Register Employees [UPDATED]

UPDATED WITH CONFIRMATION, DETAILS FROM REGISTER REPORT...It will be was announced today that all Orange County Register employees will be subjected to a 5 percent pay cut, an insider tells the Weekly. effective July 13.This comes on top of mandatory employee furloughs--or unpaid, one-week vacations ... More >>

Jacko and Freedom CEO Flanders: Just Beat It

Not sure which stage of grief this falls under, but as the initial reports of Michael Jackson's death were coming out, what are assumed to be Orange County Register and/or Freedom Communications insiders were linking the King of Pop's departure from Earth with Freedom CEO Scott Flanders' departure f ... More >>

Called It! [Again] on Register/Freedom CEO Musical Chairs

Burl OsborneA Register Orange County Business News blog post that went up last night crows that it learned from "four inside sources" Monday that Burl Osborne will be named chief executive officer of the paper's parent company Freedom Communications Inc. of Irvine when the board meets later this wee ... More >>

OC Register Says Advertisers, Clients Screwed Them Out of $350,000

Lawyers for the Orange County Register have filed nine lawsuits in the last nine months--including two in recent days--seeking more than $350,000 in outstanding debt from advertisers, commercial printing clients and at least one distributor of OC's largest daily newspaper.According to Superior Court ... More >>

Called It! Reg. Owner CEO A Playboy Candidate (Updated: This IS Happening)

No, silly, Freedom Communications's CEO Scott Flanders isn't posing in the venerated skin mag -- we hope. But he is being considered to run it, according to The Wall Street Journal, via the Register's own business blog (wonder if Reg real estate guru Jon Lasner got permission from the top to link to ... More >>

The Register To Start Charging For Online Content?

This could be nothing, but the media-watching folks at The Atlantic and Gawker seem to think it very well could be something big. The executives of the nation's top newspaper companies -- Register-owning, Irvine-based Freedom Communications among them -- met yesterday in Chicago to talk about the fu ... More >>

Will Freedom Take Playboy Down With Register?

There is one thing we can take solace in here at the Weekly: post something online about infighting at the Orange County Register and its Freedom Communications parent and it's sure to generate comments--from those doing the infighting. Our Publisher to Register Employees: Let Them Eat Hawaiian Brea ... More >>

An Even More Dramatic Look at Register's Circulation Free Fall

Data released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations at the end April was sad but unsurprising: over the previous six months, circulation at the Orange County Register of Santa Ana fell 7.9 percent to 230,877 for Monday through Friday editions and 3.7 percent to 300,273 on Sundays. But a Bay Area press ... More >>

Navel Gazing: The Avis of Journalistic Blogs in the West

Dear readers, prepare to withstand some navel gazing about Navel Gazing, the OC Weekly staff news blog: It has won second-place honors from Best of the West, which was founded in 1987 to promote freedom of information and reward journalistic excellence, mainly through its contest for newspapers and ... More >>

Battle Between Register Execs and Peons Takes a Spanish Turn

Clockwork feels obliged to point out the latest comments left on our recent blog posts about the continuing turmoil within the Grand Avenue headquarters of the Orange County Register.HorneTo recap, it all started with our March 9 "Publisher to Register Employees: Let Them Eat Hawaiian Bread," which ... More >>

Insiders Take Potshots at Freedom Communications

Author, sociologist and working-class advocate Barbara Ehrenreich recently spoke about being confronted by a foe who accused her of engaging in class warfare, to which Ehrenreich responded that's absolutely true but her side in not the one that started the war.Who knew class-warfare skirmishes could ... More >>

OC Register Parent Company Announces Company-Wide Furloughs

In the vein of Spencer's post about Register interns, I've got some confessions of my own: a certain person on this blog may have, at one point, worked as an intern for one of the Orange County Register's sister papers, the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona. In fact, said Albert-esque person may ... More >>

OC Register to Lay Off 30 Newsroom Employees

Just received word from an anonymous but reliable source that the Register is going to announce the elimination of 30 newsroom positions tomorrow. The paper is hoping to avoid direct layoffs by getting volunteers. Stay tuned for updates on who jumps the ship(wreck).* *Update #1: Apparently, Freedo ... More >>

Times Begins Layoffs, Reg to Up the Ante?

Today, according to reports on LAObserved and Fishbowl LA, the Los Angeles Times got an early start to the layoffs announced last week of 150 newsroom employees. Editors have already drawn up lists of names of folks who will be handed pink slips. But with the surprise—not really—exception of pub ... More >>

Gunga Din, Bring Copy!

Sources we know who know sources at the Register say there's a rumor circulating around Grand Street, namely that the visionary wizards at Freedom Communications are about to embark on a new experiment: outsourcing weekend copy editing for the Register-owned San Clemente Sun-Post to the Indian subco ... More >>

Reg Obit Writer Among Those to Leave Paper

There's something a little sad—ironic is too obvious a word—in the apparent fact that Robin Hinch, the Register's famed obituary writer, is among the casualties of the paper's most recent round of self-immolation. Today I received an anonymous tip from a source with ties to the Register's news ... More >>

What you missed over the weekend: Part IX

The Gothla Festival hit Fullerton from Friday to Sunday, and we were there in full force. Christopher Victorio took some beautiful pictures of the ladies gyrating in all sorts of intricate outfits at Saturday night's Gothic Gala. (Check those out here.) Luke Thompson and Derek Olson were also in att ... More >>

SCOWL Part 2: More Layoffs at the Register!

The Orange County Register is apparently running a story tomorrow saying that 25 people are being laid off from the paper in just the latest downsizing by Freedom Communications and its corporate investor overlord, Blackstone. One person who's leaving is Susan Jacobs, an editor who took a buy-out ... More >>

Sunday's Headlines & Surprises

John Wayne and the Grey, er, Wild Goose: Greg Aragon reports that John Wayne's 1942 yacht, Wild Goose, remains a work horse tour boat for Hornblower Cruises & Events in the area and that the long dead actor's spiritual presence is aboard. (If dying doesn't change bad habits, I presume he's still in ... More >>

Register Gone Red?

The Orange County Register's parent company, Blackstone Group, said Red money is good money May 22 as they accepted $3 billion from its newest partner, the Chinese government, according to reports from several news agencies. Blackstone Group is a private equity firm that owns 28 daily newspapers and ... More >>

Register One Step From Layoffs

To prevent layoffs on the heels of a sharp decline in advertising revenue, Freedom Communications--the parent company of The Orange County Register--today offered voluntary severance packages to employees, according to sources. "If not enough people opt out, then there will be layoffs," a veteran o ... More >>

R.C. Hoiles Speaks From the Grave

Diary of a Mad County