Freedom Comm CEO Kushner resigns in management shake-up

Freedom Communications, the media company that owns the Orange County Register, said Tuesday that co-owner chairman and CEO Aaron Kushner has resigned from his executive duties, a management shake-up that follows months of turmoil.

Rich Mirman, a former casino marketing executive who joined the company in October as interim publisher and CEO of two Freedom newspapers — the Register and the The Press-Enterprise of Riverside — will replace Kushner as president and CEO of Freedom Communications. Mirman will retain his current position as publisher of the Register and the Press-Enterprise.

Co-owner Eric Spitz stepped down as president and will replace Kushner as chairman of the board of directors.

"I want to thank all of the associates at Freedom that I've had the privilege of working with over the last few years," Kushner said in a statement.

Kushner, who bought the company about three years ago in an attempt to revive profitability in its print newspaper business, told The Los Angeles Times Tuesday that he has "not changed (his) ownership interest." Freedom also confirmed that Kushner and Spitz are still shareholders.

The management shuffle may be a sign that Freedom's owners are preparing to sell the company, media analyst Ken Doctor told the Times. "The process will continue where (Mirman) unwinds the damage," Doctor said. "His job is to steady the place and to get it ready for another owner."

In July 2012, Kushner, a former greeting card executive, bought a controlling stake in Freedom and placed a contrarian bet on a print-first strategy that focused on charging for reading online and introducing newspapers in new markets near its headquarters in Southern California.

Since Kushner took over, he has hired — and laid off — staffers at his larger papers, including the Register and added new sections. He bought the Press-Enterprise in 2013 to expand the company's presence in the Inland Valley area and expanded the Register into Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Despite the optimistic marketing messages Kushner espoused at the launch of the Los Angeles Register, the paper couldn't escape the harsh economic conditions of the print business and competitive pressures from the Times. Freedom shut down the publication after five months.

Meanwhile, staffing at its flagship paper, the Register, continued to shrink through several rounds of layoffs, buyouts and furloughs. A payment dispute with a local distributor, The Los Angeles Times, resulted in home delivery interruptions for Register customers last year for several days.