In a 7:53pm post on their website tonight, Freedom Communications and the Orange County Register have announced the replacement of their publisher, Aaron Kushner, with a Las Vegas casino marketing executive who has no newspaper experience. Their lead:
Richard Mirman, a former executive at Harrah’s Entertainment known in Las Vegas for his talents in casino marketing, has been named interim publisher and chief executive of the Orange County Register.
Kushner will remain in charge of their Opinion section which was weakened long ago by the departures of Steve Greenhut, Cathy Taylor, John Seiler and the death of Alan Bock — so inept and inconsequential Brian Calle, if he’s still with the company, has a new boss.
Mirman has an investment in Freedom and is clearly there to right the ship and salvage his money. Kushner has failed with the long-time Orange County “paper of record” and inadvisedly invested in other news ventures in Long Beach, Los Angeles and the Inland Empire.
The Register has laid off an army of long-time employees and has recently been hammered in this Blog, at the OC Weekly and other social media outlets for the still ongoing disaster in failing to deliver the paper to its subscribers (I am one, and have received one on-time delivery in the last 11 12 days).
10/14/Update. LA Times coverage here. OC Weekly here: Aaron Kushner Steps Down as OC Register Publisher in Favor of a…CASINO GUY?
