Business

DOLAN CAVES IN NEWSDAY ROW

Newsday can call off the search parties – Editor-in-Chief John Mancini has been found.

After nearly a week of being MIA, Mancini resurfaced yesterday in the Newsday newsroom, as it looked as if a stalemate between the editor and owner Cablevision ended after the company blinked.

According to Newsday’s Web site, Mancini told his staff that his absence since last Wednesday was the result of a “difference of opinion with ownership over the editorial policy of Newsday.” He said the discussions had grown heated, and when a staffer asked if the words “You’re fired” or “I quit” were used, Mancini said, “Words to that effect were uttered.”

Cablevision – which in addition to cable systems owns the Knicks, Rangers and Madison Square Garden – bought Newsday from Sam Zell’s debt-addled Tribune Co. for $650 million in July.

Mancini’s return to the Melville, LI, newsroom added another twist to the high drama playing out at the Long Island daily ever since Mancini and his deputies, Managing Editors Debby Krenek and Deborah Henley, appeared to have staged a walkout as part of the high-stakes dispute.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the imbroglio centered on the paper’s coverage of a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against Knicks center Eddy Curry by his driver. Newsday ran shots of Curry on both sides of its Jan. 13 issue, and ran the headline, “Personal Foul” on the back cover.

Cablevision’s brass was said to be hopping mad that Mancini gave the go-ahead to running an unedited copy of the lawsuit on its Web site.

After a meeting last Wednesday evening with Publisher Tim Knight, Mancini, Krenek and Henley went missing from the newsroom, and were nowhere to be found as the paper covered huge stories such as the landing of a US Airways plane in the Hudson River and the days leading up to yesterday’s presidential inauguration.

Krenek resurfaced Monday, which at the time raised speculation that she might be tapped to replace Mancini should he be officially ousted. Indeed, even Mancini himself thought he might be a goner as recently as Monday night, sources said.

However, yesterday Mancini returned to the newsroom at midday, just as the “Star Spangled Banner” was being sung at the inauguration.

“I’m back,” he told surprised staffers as he walked into the newsroom.

He addressed the staff at 2:15 p.m. and, according to one insider, Mancini “acknowledged that there was a disagreement that took several days to resolve.” He also said Knight “supported him the entire time and understood the issues.”

“People clapped, which is unusual in a newsroom,” said one insider.

“He’s the first Italian American to rise from the dead,” said Warren Berry, a former reporter and editor at Newsday and a longtime friend and Mancini confidant.