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Star-Bulletin The editor and publisher of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin stepped down today to join the company that is buying the 118-year-old afternoon daily.
publisher John
Flanagan steps down
He is leaving to help the
newspaper's new owner
with expansion plansBy Rick Daysog
Star-BulletinJohn Flanagan, who had led the Star-Bulletin since 1993, resigned from Liberty Newspapers Limited Partnership to join Black Press Ltd., which will take over the Star-Bulletin on March 15. Black Press said Flanagan will be editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin when it becomes the owner.
Flanagan said he is leaving Liberty to work on transition issues and help the Star-Bulletin's new owner with expansion plans for the 63,500-circulation daily.
Black Press previously said it wanted to expand the Star-Bulletin's daily circulation to about 100,000. It plans to add a morning edition and a Sunday edition to the Star-Bulletin's current six-days-a-week coverage.
"It makes a lot of sense for me to go ahead," Flanagan said in a meeting with Star-Bulletin newsroom employees this morning.
Flanagan, 54, joined the Star-Bulletin in 1986 as executive editor and has served as editor and publisher since 1993, when Liberty purchased the afternoon daily from Gannett Co.
Between 1984 and 1987 he served as editor of the Marin Independent Journal in Northern California. Prior to that, he was managing editor of the Wilmington News Journal in Delaware.
Black is acquiring the Star-Bulletin in a court-supervised process. Liberty put the Star-Bulletin up for sale in April to head off antitrust lawsuits.
The state and SOS sued Liberty and Gannett Co., which owns the rival Honolulu Advertiser, after Liberty announced that it was shutting down the Star-Bulletin and terminating its joint operating agreement with Gannett in exchange for $26.5 million.
Since 1962 the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin operated under a JOA in which the two papers shared printing, advertising and circulation costs but retained separate editorial voices. Following the sale to Black, the Star-Bulletin business functions will be separate from those of the Advertiser.
Bulletin closing archive
