The McClatchy Co. has named Mark Zieman as president and publisher of The Kansas City Star, effective Thursday, the Kansas City Business Journal reported.
Zieman had been editor of the newspaper since 1997 and has been interim publisher since Jan. 28, when Mac Tully stepped down to take a job at MediaNews Group Inc.
McClatchy, based in Sacramento, Calif., is the third-largest newspaper company in the United States, with 30 daily newspapers, about 50 nondailies, and direct marketing and direct-mail operations.
As of Feb. 29, The Star had 1,347 employees, of whom 1,037 are full time, McClatchy spokesman Peter Tira said. The paper has 290 newsroom employees.
Zieman said he hopes to name his successor as editor in four to six weeks.
"We have some strong internal candidates, and that's always good and comforting," he said. "I've already been approached by a lot of people outside the paper who want to come here as editor."
Zieman was sanguine about the future for The Star and daily newspapers in general.
"I think newspapers probably do an overzealous job of talking about the challenges of newspapers," he said. "All media have a lot of challenges. The great paradox of newspapers is that we've never been more popular with our readers. When you add in the online arm, .... we grew it by more than 7 million unique visitors in 2007 from 2006. Our readership in print and online combined is more than 3 million a month. We're a million a month in print alone. We've never had that in the 127 years of our history."
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