An Argentinian newspaper is negotiating to take over ImpreMedia, the owner of El Diario/La Prensa, the nation’s oldest Spanish language daily, as well as six other Spanish-language newspapers, including La Opinion in Los Angeles.
While the sale talks continue with La Nación, the staffers at El Diario/La Prensa, represented by the Newspaper Guild, are expected to vote next week on whether to ratify a new union contract that is still being finalized between management and union leaders.
The labor negotiations have become increasingly tense, and staffers have been without a contract since the previous one expired in May 2010.
ImpreMedia, controlled by private-equity investors including Los Angeles-based Clarity Partners, late last year had made what it termed its “final offer.”
According to a copy of that agreement on the Web site, the company wanted to ax 17 of the 66 guild-covered jobs and have the option of making more cuts some six months down the down.
After that offer was made, the guild and the company brought in a national mediator, Marty Scheinman, to hammer out an agreement.
“These were very difficult negotiations with a company that is in pretty shaky financial shape,” said William O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild, who declined to disclose particulars. “We have examined their books, but we are under a confidentiality agreement.”
La Nacion, based in Buenos Aires, is Argentina’s second-largest daily newspaper. A La Nación rep did not return an e-mail seeking comment.
At one point, cross-dressing former boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya had been an investor in ImpreMedia, sources said, but it could not be determined if he was still involved with the company.
Board members at Clarity, including Leo Griffin and Steve Rader, did not respond to calls by press time. Lozano referred calls to a Los Angeles-based spokeswoman, who declined to comment.
El Diario/La Prensa has seen its circulation tumble in recent years, with some staffers blaming current leadership for mismanagement and ineptitude.
In June 2010, when the Russian spy ring that included the sexy Anna Chapman was busted by the FBI, it was also emerged that one of the 10 spies in the ring was El Diario journalist Vicky Pelaez, a Peruvian who the FBI said had been working for the Russians for more than a decade.
Sources said that under terms of the pending takeover by La Nacion, current management, including Executive Editor Erika Gonzalez, CEO Monica Lozano and longtime publisher Rossana Rosado are expected to remain in place.
Book deal
Rod Dreher, former columnist at The Post and current writer and blogger for the American Conservative, has snagged what is estimated to be a $1 million deal to write a memoir of how a small town in Louisiana rallied around his sister as she fought a losing battle to lung cancer.
The book is tentatively entitled, “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, A Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life.”
John Brodie, executive editor of Grand Central Books at Hachette Book Group, beat out Simon & Schuster to land the book after the New York Times’ David Brooks wrote glowingly of Dreher’s self discovery.
The deal was brokered by literary agent Gary Morris at the David Black Agency. He declined to disclose details.
Dreher told Media Ink that he was two years older than his sister, and while he considered them to be close, they had taken remarkably different paths in life.
Dreher left the small town where he and his sister grew up, St. Francisville, La., population 1,700 and became a big city journalist.
“I never expected to be back,” he said.
His sister stayed home, married a US Marine veteran and local firefighter and had three children. She became a school teacher and lived and worked in the same town where she had grown up.
When his sister first became ill, he began blogging about the virulent and fast-spreading form of lung cancer that would eventually take his younger sister’s life.
It wasn’t until he spent nine days back home after the funeral that he realized how important his sister had been to the local community. He said he stopped counting when he reached 1,000 mourners turning up at her wake, spilling out of the funeral home and down the street.
“During my nine days back in Louisiana, I saw this amazing community and how they had really surrounded my sister and her family in her 19-month battle with cancer. It overwhelmed me,” he said.
While there, he found that his offer on a house in Bucks County, Pa., had fallen through. Dreher said he decided instead to return to St. Francisville.
“It took my sister dying to make me realize the love that was in the community,” he said.