The Orange County Register

The Register was founded by a consortium as the Santa Ana Daily Register in 1905. It was sold to J. P. Baumgartner in 1906 and to J. Frank Burke in 1927. In 1935 it was bought by Raymond C. Hoiles, who renamed it the Santa Ana Register. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hoiles was one of the few newspaper publishers in the country to oppose the forced relocation of Japanese and Japanese Americans to camps away from the West Coast.^[4] Hoiles reorganized his holdings as Freedom Newspapers, Inc. In 1950, the name was changed to Freedom Communications. The paper dropped "Santa Ana" from its title in 1952.

In 1956, the newspaper was a prominent supporter of a vociferous campaign by anti-communists against the Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act, claiming that it was part of a Communist plot to establish concentration camps in Alaska. Circulation rose with the burgeoning population of Orange County and after the Register added a morning edition in 1959.

In 1970, Hoiles's sons, Clarence and Harry, became co-publishers until 1979, when R. David Threshie, Clarence's son-in-law, was named to the position.

1980s

Faced with an aggressive push into the county by the Los Angeles Times under publisher Otis Chandler, Threshie brought in 30-year-old N. Christian Anderson III as editor. Political positions were restricted to the editorial page. In 1981, the paper began publishing in full color.

In 1985, the paper assumed the name The Orange County Register. In the same year it won its first Pulitzer Prize, for its photographic coverage of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. It won additional Pulitzers in 1989 for beat reporting by Edward Humes on U.S. military problems with night-vision goggles and in 1996 for an investigation into Ricardo Asch's fertility clinics.^[5]

1990s

In 1990, the newspaper launched the 24-hour OCN news channel with news and feature stories about Orange County. It closed in 2001.^[6]

In 1992, Orange County Register Communications launched Excélsior, a Spanish-language weekly. In 2010 Excélsior had a circulation of 51,000.^[7] It covers Orange County's growing Hispanic community, which now numbers over a million. Julio Saenz is the editor and general manager.

In 1994, Anderson was named publisher of Freedom’s second largest newspaper, the Colorado Springs Gazette. Managing editor Tonnie Katz was named to replace Anderson as editor of the Register. In 1999, Threshie became chairman of the board of Freedom Communication and Anderson returned to the Register as publisher and chief executive officer.

Ken Brusic was named vice president of content and executive editor in April 2002.

2000s: Schism and bankruptcy

In 2003, a family schism led to the sale of a majority interest in Freedom Communications to investors led by the Blackstone Group and Providence Equity Partners. Through a stock arrangement, the Hoiles family descendants retained control of the board. The private equity firms received a management fee off the company’s gross revenue.

In 2006, Orange County Register Communications launched the OC Post, a tabloid with shortened versions of Register stories as well as news articles from the Associated Press.

The Register had its first significant staff reductions in December 2006, with 40 newsroom employees taking buyouts, along with a small number of layoffs.

By April 2007, The Orange County Register had made additional staff cuts to help maintain shareholder profit, which had averaged more than 20 percent annually in the preceding five years.

Since the launch of the OC Post in 2006, OCRC had cut the Register's editorial staff by 10 percent and had frozen pay raises to editorial staff, which had averaged 3 percent annually, for six months.

In September 2007, Terry Horne was named publisher of The Register. He came from the East Valley Tribune, a Freedom-owned suburban paper in the Phoenix area. He replaced N. Christian Anderson III as publisher.

In June 2008, KTLA, The Los Angeles Times and Fox News reported that the Register had begun a one-month trial of outsourcing some layout and copy-editing work to India to save costs.^[8] The trial was not deemed a success, and editing returned to Register

In spring of 2009, Freedom Communications instituted furloughs for all employees nationwide, followed by a permanent 5% pay cut starting in July 2009. News reports in August 2009 indicated that Freedom Communications planned to file for bankruptcy and turn control of its publications, including The Orange County Register, over to its lenders.^[9]

In September 2009, a column written by sports columnist Mark Whicker caused controversy.^[10] In the column,^[11] Whicker wrote about various sporting events that had occurred over the preceding 18 years, and how they had been missed by Jaycee Dugard, a girl who had been kidnapped, raped, and forced to bear her kidnapper's children. Whicker ended his column with the line "Jaycee, you have left the yard." The column generated widespread criticism and was parodied in blogs such as Deadspin,^[12] who called it "the single worst piece of journalism ever committed on this page," and The Huffington Post.

2010s

On July 25, 2012, The Orange County Register and six other papers were purchased by 2100 Trust LLC.^[13] The papers continued to operate under the Freedom Communications name.^[14] In December the Register changed its logo and branding, dropping "The" in favor of Orange County Register.^[15]

A lawsuit was filed in October 2013 by the former owners of Freedom Communications against Aaron Kushner, principal of 2100 Trust, demanding that Kushner's company pay more than $17 million remaining on the sale. The Los Angeles Times wrote that Kushner, "a former greeting-card executive with no prior media experience," claimed that the prior owners had given him "inaccurate valuations for a host of crucial financial indicators" and that he faced "$62.3 million in unexpected financial liabilities as a result."^[14] On August 19, 2013, the Long Beach Register was launched as an edition of The Orange County Register serving the Long Beach, California, community. It was focused solely on community news, including city government, public and private education, local sports coverage, business and entertainment as an intended competitor to the Long Beach Press-Telegram. In addition, on January 20, 2014, The Press-Enterprise became an edition of The Orange County Register while maintaining coverage of the Inland Empire.^[16]

On April 16, 2014, The Orange County Register launched the Los Angeles Register, "more a print play than a digital one" serving Los Angeles County. It was the first time since the Herald-Examiner folded on November 1, 1989, that a main competitor to the Los Angeles Times was launched, this time intended to be "as local as one edition can be for the entire county."^[17] Five months later, Kushner announced in a company memo that the Los Angeles Register was ending publication effective immediately. Kushner wrote that "pundits and local competitors" will be quick to call the effort a failure while he believes that "not taking bold steps toward growth" would have been the true failure.^[18] The Long Beach Register became a Sunday-only publication in June 2014,^[19] and ceased publication in December 2014.^[20] In October the Los Angeles Times sued the Register for failing to pay more than $2 million to the Times for delivery services for the now-defunct Register newspapers in Los Angeles and Long Beach. In March 2014 the Los Angeles Superior Court granted the Times a $4.2 million writ of attachment to secure the ability of the Times to enforce a possible judgment in its favor.^[21]

On March 10, 2015, Aaron Kushner and his partner, Eric Spitz, resigned from executive duties at the paper and Freedom Communications Inc. The company was rumored to be readying itself for a potential sale. Publisher Rich Mirman, a former Las Vegas casino executive who had invested in Freedom, was announced as the new president and chief executive.^[22]

On February 12, 2016, Freedom Communications announced that The Orange County Register and the Press-Enterprise along with its websites, community weeklies and the two Spanish-Language weeklies Excelsior in Orange County and La Prensa in the Inland Empire, were being placed in a "stalking horse" auction after the company declared bankrupt at the end of 2015. Both Digital First Media and Tribune Publishing were the bidders. The auction started on March 21 and was completed on March 31, 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice blocked the sale of Freedom Communications to Tribune Publishing because it would create a newspaper monopoly in both Orange and Riverside Counties..On March 21, 2016, Digital First Media acquired both The Orange County Register and the Press-Enterprise for $52.3 million in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana. Los Angeles News Group was renamed Southern California News Group on March 31, 2016, once the sale of Freedom Communications to Digital First Media was completed. It has 11 paid regional dailies, and community weeklies serving the South Bay communities of Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Long Beach neighborhoods north and east of downtown and over 20 community weeklies in Orange County, as well as the Spanish-language weeklies Impacto USA and Unidos, now consolidated as Excelsior, which will have three editions for Los Angeles County, Orange County and Inland Empire.^[23] On Sept. 21, 2016, it was announced that the Register would move its headquarters to 2190 Towne Centre Place, Anaheim, and vacate its longtime home at 625 N. Grand Ave., Santa Ana.^[24] The new headquarters opened April 24, 2017.^[25]

The Alliance for Audited Media reported in 2017 that the Register's circulation had dropped to 80,000 on weekdays and 180,000 on Sundays.^[26]

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Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act

Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act

The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. It became the focus of a major political controversy after opponents nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist plot to hospitalize and brainwash Americans. Campaigners asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States.

Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is a U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., it borders British Columbia and the Yukon in Canada to the east, and it shares a western maritime border in the Bering Strait with the Russian Federation's Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas of the Arctic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest.

Orange County, California

Orange County, California

Orange County, often known by its initials O.C., is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 American states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second-most-densely-populated county in the state behind San Francisco County. The county's three most-populous cities are Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County are on the Pacific coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente.

Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times, abbreviated as LA Times, is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the Los Angeles suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the United States. The publication has won more than 40 Pulitzer Prizes. It is owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by the Times Mirror Company. The newspaper's coverage has evolved more recently away from U.S. and international headlines and toward emphasizing California and especially Southern California stories.

1984 Summer Olympics

1984 Summer Olympics

The 1984 Summer Olympics were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the second time that Los Angeles had hosted the Games, the first being in 1932. California was the home state of the incumbent U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who officially opened the Games. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Excélsior

Excélsior

Excélsior is a daily newspaper in Mexico City. It is the second oldest paper in the city after El Universal, printing its first issue on March 18, 1917.

Chief executive officer

Chief executive officer

A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer, chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization – especially an independent legal entity such as a company or nonprofit institution. CEOs find roles in a range of organizations, including public and private corporations, non-profit organizations and even some government organizations. The CEO of a corporation or company typically reports to the board of directors and is charged with maximizing the value of the business, which may include maximizing the share price, market share, revenues or another element. In the non-profit and government sector, CEOs typically aim at achieving outcomes related to the organization's mission, usually provided by legislation. CEOs are also frequently assigned the role of main manager of the organization and the highest-ranking officer in the C-suite.

OC Post

OC Post

The OC Post was a daily newspaper for Orange County, California, that existed from August 21, 2006, to February 2008. Chartered by Freedom Communications, who also own and operate the Orange County Register, it was an attempt to condense a standard newspaper into a more "modern" tabloid format.

Associated Press

Associated Press

The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspapers and broadcasters. Since the award was established in 1917, the AP has earned 56 Pulitzer Prizes, including 34 for photography. It is also known for publishing the widely used AP Stylebook.

KTLA

KTLA

KTLA is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW Television Network. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the second-largest operated property after WPIX in New York City. KTLA's studios are located at the Sunset Bronson Studios on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.

Fox News

Fox News

The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, is an American multinational conservative news entertainment and political commentary television channel and website based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is owned by the Fox Corporation. It is the most-watched cable network in the U.S. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Fox News provides a service to 86 countries and territories, with international broadcasts featuring Fox Extra segments during advertising breaks.

Freedom Communications

Freedom Communications

Freedom Communications, Inc., was an American media conglomerate that operated daily and weekly newspapers, websites and mobile applications, as well as Coast Magazine and other specialty publications. Headquartered at 625 N. Grand Avenue in Santa Ana, California, it was owned by a private equity firm, 2100 Trust, established in 2010 by investor Aaron Kushner Freedom's flagship newspaper was the Orange County Register, based in Santa Ana.

The Register was notable for its generally libertarian-leaning editorial page.^[27] It generally supported free markets and social liberties, though at least some on the editorial board said they would not call it libertarian.^[28] Although it sometimes supported Republican politicians and positions, it was the largest newspaper in the country to have opposed the Iraq War from the beginning and opposed laws regulating issues such as prostitution and drug use. It was one of a handful of newspapers that opposed the internment of Japanese aliens and Japanese-Americans during World War II.^[29][30] It also opposed Proposition 8 in 2008, which proposed to define the word "marriage" in the California Constitution to mean between a man and a woman definitively.^[31] After the Digital First purchase of Freedom Communications, the Register's editorial page was merged with that of the Los Angeles Daily News and Digital First's other papers in the region to form a single editorial board for the Southern California News Group on regional and national issues.^[32]

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Libertarianism

Libertarianism

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's encroachment on and violations of individual liberties; emphasizing the rule of law, pluralism, cosmopolitanism, cooperation, civil and political rights, bodily autonomy, free association, free trade, freedom of expression, freedom of choice, freedom of movement, individualism, and voluntary association. Libertarians are often skeptical of or opposed to authority, state power, warfare, militarism and nationalism, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems. Various schools of Libertarian thought offer a range of views regarding the legitimate functions of state and private power, often calling for the restriction or dissolution of coercive social institutions. Different categorizations have been used to distinguish various forms of Libertarianism. Scholars distinguish libertarian views on the nature of property and capital, usually along left–right or socialist–capitalist lines. Libertarians of various schools were influenced by liberal ideas.

Free market

Free market

In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set solely by the bids and offers of the participants.

Liberty

Liberty

Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant. It is a synonym for the word freedom.

Iraq War

Iraq War

The Iraq War was a protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The conflict continued for much of the next decade as an insurgency emerged to oppose the coalition forces and the post-invasion Iraqi government. US troops were officially withdrawn in 2011. The United States became re-involved in 2014 at the head of a new coalition, and the insurgency and many dimensions of the armed conflict are ongoing. The invasion occurred as part of the George W. Bush administration's war on terror following the September 11 attacks, despite no connection between Iraq and the attacks.

World War II

World War II

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global conflict that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, fought as part of two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Many participants threw their economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind this total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war.

Southern California News Group

Southern California News Group

The Southern California News Group (SCNG), formerly the San Gabriel Valley News Group and the Los Angeles News Group, is an umbrella group of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area by Digital First Media, which is owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

In addition to publishing The Orange County Register, Southern California News Group publishes OC Family magazine, Coast magazine, and the following affiliated weeklies:^[33]

• Anaheim Bulletin of Anaheim^[34]
• Coastal Current (North and South editions) of Newport Beach^[35][36]
• North County News Tribune of Fullerton^[34]
• Irvine World News of Irvine^[36][37][38]
• Laguna Woods Globe of Laguna Woods
• Saddleback Valley News of Lake Forest/Mission Viejo^[34]
• The Wave of Huntington Beach

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Southern California News Group

Southern California News Group

The Southern California News Group (SCNG), formerly the San Gabriel Valley News Group and the Los Angeles News Group, is an umbrella group of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area by Digital First Media, which is owned by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital.

Anaheim, California

Anaheim, California

Anaheim is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most populous city in California, and the 55th-most populous city in the United States. Anaheim is the second-largest city in Orange County in terms of land area, and is known for being the home of the Disneyland Resort, the Anaheim Convention Center, and two major sports teams: the Los Angeles Angels baseball team and the Anaheim Ducks ice hockey club.

Newport Beach, California

Newport Beach, California

Newport Beach is a coastal city in southern Orange County, California, United States. Newport Beach is known for swimming and sandy beaches. Newport Harbor once supported maritime industries; however today it is used mostly for recreation. Balboa Island draws visitors with a waterfront path and easy access from the ferry to the shops and restaurants.

Fullerton, California

Fullerton, California

Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 143,617.

Irvine, California

Irvine, California

Irvine is a master-planned city in southern Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 1971. The 66-square-mile (170 km2) city had a population of 307,670 at the 2020 census.

Laguna Woods, California

Laguna Woods, California

Laguna Woods is a city in Orange County, California, United States. The population was 16,192 at the 2010 census, down from 16,507 at the 2000 census, with a median age of 78.

Lake Forest, California

Lake Forest, California

Lake Forest is a city in Orange County, California. The population was 85,858 at the 2020 census.

Mission Viejo, California

Mission Viejo, California

Mission Viejo is a commuter city in the Saddleback Valley in Orange County, California, United States. Mission Viejo is considered one of the largest master-planned communities ever built under a single project in the United States and is rivaled only by Highlands Ranch in size. Its population as of 2020 was 93,653.

Huntington Beach, California

Huntington Beach, California

Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California, United States. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 during the 2020 census, making it the fourth most populous city in Orange County, the most populous beach city in Orange County, and the seventh most populous city in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Downtown Los Angeles, it is bordered by Bolsa Chica Basin State Marine Conservation Area on the west, the Pacific Ocean on the southwest, by Seal Beach on the northwest, by Westminster on the north, by Fountain Valley on the northeast, by Costa Mesa on the east, and by Newport Beach on the southeast.

On April 1, 2013, The Orange County Register began providing its online content through a metered paywall. Most online content required a subscription, with the exception of local weather, traffic, Associated Press or non-Register articles, and a few select local news articles.^[39] As of October 2015, the website does not have a paywall and online content is free. As of May 2018, the paywall has been reinstated.^[40]