William Dean Singleton
William Dean Singleton is the founder and chairman of the board of MediaNews Group, the second-largest newspaper company by circulation in the United States.
“With more than 50 daily newspapers in 11 states and more than 90 published products, MediaNews Group engages a weekly print audience of over 18 million people,” according to Scarborough Research, MediaNews Group analysis of Audit Bureau of Circulation reports and internal records.
Singleton began his newspaper career at 15, serving as a part-time reporter in his hometown of Graham, Texas, and bought his first newspaper at 21.
He built MediaNews Group through the acquisition of newspapers, many on the verge of reorganization or closure. He pioneered the practice of clustering newspapers and centralizing such functions as advertising sales, business operations, production, and in some cases, editorial. He also adopted and developed pooled-asset partnerships with other media companies, such as Gannett and E.W. Scripps Co.
Singleton vexed journalists throughout the late part of the 20th century. In the 1970s, the newsroom staff of the old Fort Worth Press threw beer cans at him and in the 1980s, a former editor of the Trenton (N.J.) Times told the Columbia Journalism Review that under Singleton’s cutbacks, “The public lost a watchdog and gained a bulletin board.” In the late 1990s, Singleton began shifting his view that rather than merely a cost center, the newsroom is an asset. He lured Gregory Moore, former assistant managing editor of the Boston Globe, to the Denver Post and together the two worked to improve the paper’s journalism.
Singleton’s holdings increased rapidly over the last decade with the acquisition of dailies in Salt Lake City, Detroit, St. Paul, Minn., and San Jose, Calif.
Singleton serves as chairman of the board of directors of The Associated Press and is former chairman of the board of the Newspaper Association of America, on which he served as a member from 1993 to 2004. He also serves on many boards in Colorado, including The Helen G. Bonfils Foundation, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Winter Park Recreational Association, Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center, and National Sports Center for the Disabled. He is a former member of the University of Denver board of trustees.
Singleton and his wife, the former Adrienne Casale of Fairfield, N.J., have three children: William, Paige and Adam.