Circulation scandals that have rocked the Tribune Co.'s Newsday and Spanish-language Hoy newspapers claimed the jobs of the publications' top two executives on Monday.
Tribune, which also runs the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and a string of television stations, said it named Newsday president Timothy Knight to be publisher of Long Island, New York's Newsday, replacing Ray Jansen who is retiring.
At Hoy, Digby Solomon Diez was named interim publisher, replacing Louis Sito who is also retiring.
Jansen and Sito were running the newspapers in June when Tribune disclosed that circulation figures for periods dating back to 2002 had been misstated. Last week, the publishing company said additional misstatements had been found in 2001.
In separate statements, Jansen and Sito both acknowledged the circulation issues as the reasons behind their retirements. Jansen said he had been planning to leave at year-end, but now he will depart in mid-August.
"Understanding what our management has to do to repair the damage to our circulation credibility, it became apparent that my departure date should be sooner than anticipated," he said.
Knight will become publisher and chief executive officer of Newsday, which covers the New York metropolitan area, effective Aug. 15. He joined Newsday in February 2003 and became president and chief operating officer about a year ago. He has run daily business and non-news operations of the paper.
Sito said he did "not want to be a distraction" to the Hoy newspapers and added, "It is time for me to move on."
Hoy is a Spanish-language newspaper published by Tribune in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Solomon Diez had been vice president and general manager of Hoy, Chicago, and had run business operations at the paper.
In addition to the appointment of Solomon Diez, Timothy Kennedy has been named interim chief operating officer. Kennedy had been vice president/strategy and development for Tribune Publishing since January 2001.
