Another Domino Falls

"Hot damn!" exclaimed Tom Bray, managing editor at the San Bernardino County Sun, a Gannett-owned newspaper that competes with the Daily Bulletin. "If that’s the way he runs a newspaper," said Bray, referring to Singleton’s reputation, "we can’t wait to get down to it."

If Singleton repeats in Ontario what he did in Long Beach, it could spell trouble for reporters, readers and revenues, said Mel Opotowsky, ombudsman for The Press-Enterprisein Riverside. "It disregards the dignity of the people who work at the newspaper, and ultimately, that will be reflected in the pages of the paper."

Yet Daily Bulletineditor Brossart asserted that some of the 12 cities in the newspaper’s circulation area may actually get an extra reporter on the beat as a result of the merger. In some markets, such as Denver, Singleton has invested resources in papers that otherwise would be trampled by competitors. That direction would be good news to readers in cities such as Pomona, many of whom feel abandoned since Donrey combined the Pomona Progress Bulletinwith the Ontario Daily Reportin 1990, the merger that created the Daily Bulletin. Some staffers estimate the paper lost well over 10,000 readers in the sprawling city as a result of the merger — and the Bulletin’s overnight decision to change the name of the Pomona Valley to the previously unheard-of "Inland Valley."

"They tried to change history and it didn’t work," one reporter says. "Can Singleton turn it around? Who knows?"

In recent years the newspaper, long a voice for lily-white Reagan Republicans, has struggled with not only its geography but its design, identity and integrity amid the Pomona Valley’s rapidly diversifying demographics.

"One would think the Daily Bulletinmay now produce more income as a result of the larger, combined ad base," says Opotowsky of The Press-Enterprise. "But will the newsroom see any of it? Or will it go into Singleton’s pocket? I don’t think anything is a foregone conclusion."