WILMINGTON, Del. — The owner of the East Valley Tribune in Mesa and The Sun in Yuma became the latest newspaper publisher Tuesday to seek bankruptcy protection, hurt by a jarring drop in advertising revenue.
Freedom Communications Inc., whose flagship paper is the Orange County Register in California, said it had reached agreement on a reorganization plan with a majority of its lenders before making the Chapter 11 filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. In the filing, Freedom cited debts of more than $1 billion and assets of $500 million to $1 billion.
Freedom had been struggling to bring in enough money to repay its debt for the past year. It required workers to take unpaid leave and imposed an across-the-board 5 percent cut in wages.
The privately held company, based in Irvine, Calif., is at least the 10th newspaper publisher to file for bankruptcy protection over the past year.
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Freedom's other newspapers include The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the Odessa American in Texas.