Denver-based ap on Wednesday announced three management changes, including naming veteran newspaper executive David J. Butler the company’s vice president for news.
Butler, 56, is currently editor and publisher of The Detroit News. He will be replaced at the News by Jonathan Wolman, who currently oversees the editorial page at The Denver Post. Dan Haley, an editorial-page writer at The Post, will take over as editorial-page editor. The changes are effective June 15.
Both The Post and The Detroit News are owned by Media News, the nation’s fourth-largest newspaper publisher.
In his new role, Butler will oversee content of the group’s newspapers and websites. He will also help roll out a companywide platform to sell national advertising online, an initiative related to MediaNews’ recently consummated deal with Internet search giant Yahoo Inc.
William Dean Singleton, Media News Group’s vice chairman and chief executive, said Butler will help MediaNews define its print and online strategies as the newspaper industry looks to adapt to a media landscape upended by the Internet.
“We need to make the print and Web products different,” Singleton said during a meeting at The Post to announce the change. “They are two different businesses, yet they have to come out of the same newsroom.”
Singleton in recent months has spearheaded a deal with Yahoo and a consortium of 11 other U.S. newspaper publishers. The deal is aimed at enabling the participating newspaper publishers to gain a slice of the booming online-search industry, among other goals.
Wolman, 56, joined The Post in 2004. Before that, he spent more than three decades with The Associated Press, including two years in Detroit as a reporter and news editor. He also served as the Washington bureau chief and a senior vice president for AP.
Wolman said Michigan’s lackluster economic environment will provide the opportunity for “poignant storytelling.”
“It’s a compelling time for some lousy reasons,” he said. “The state is in transition, and that puts a big obligation on the paper.”
Haley, 37, has worked at The Post for nine years, the past five for the editorial page. As an assistant city editor, Haley helped spearhead coverage of the Columbine High School shootings, which earned the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 2000.
Haley said he did not anticipate any significant changes on The Post’s editorial pages.
“I hope it will be a little more fun and a little more unpredictable,” he said.
Staff writer Will Shanley can be reached at 303-954-1260 or wshanley@denverpost.com.
