Amid falling profit and failing efforts to lure readers with breezy tabloids, the Orange County Register's top executive announced Wednesday that he was leaving the paper he had transformed from a sluggish daily to a Pulitzer Prize winner known for its bold graphics and design.
N. Christian Anderson III, 57, named in May as publisher of the year by industry magazine Editor & Publisher, will leave Orange County's largest newspaper Sept. 15.
His departure after almost three decades with the paper's parent company, Freedom Communications Inc., was due to a reorganization that squeezed out his job, a top company executive said.
In recent months, Anderson had suffered major setbacks. He was supposed to drop his publisher title and continue to oversee a corporate division. However, the company's choice as his successor in June turned out to have fudged her resume. And Anderson's latest attempts to lure readers -- a pair of tabloids with big photos and short stories -- flopped.
"OC Post and SqueezeOC were risks and they failed," said a Register reporter.
Anderson's departure comes amid stormy times for newspapers, which are reeling from online competition and nose-diving ad revenue.
Freedom Orange County Information, the company division that includes the Register and its sister publications and websites, has not been exempt from the trend.
This month, the Register cut about three dozen newsroom jobs. One reporter said staff members saw some justice in Anderson's departure because it "wasn't just the workers who produce the paper every day who were forced to sacrifice."
Freedom also announced Wednesday a restructuring that merges FOCI, of which Anderson is president, with its community newspapers division, a union that eliminated Anderson's job.
The merger is expected to save Freedom $10 million, Chief Executive Scott N. Flanders said, and is expected to lead to the increased sharing of stories by its papers. Jonathan Segal, president of community newspapers, will head the combined division.
Anderson "was supportive and involved in all the deliberations," Flanders said. "When the position didn't go to him, he decided to move on."
Anderson's replacement as publisher is Terry Horne, publisher of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz., which Freedom owns. Horne did not return calls seeking comment.
