Amidst Troubles, Register Gets an Interim Publisher

Richard Mirman, a former executive at Harrah’s Entertainment in Las Vegas, has been named interim publisher and chief executive of the Orange County Register.

Mirman, 48, took over Monday from Aaron Kushner, who remains the principal owner and chief executive of the Register’s parent company, Freedom Communications, the newspaper reported today.

Newsroom, advertising, marketing and circulation executives of the Register and the Freedom-owned Press-Enterprise in Riverside will report to Mirman, a Freedom investor who served in several executive marketing roles at Harrah’s from 1998 to 2007. Kushner will oversee the opinions department for both newspapers.

The appointment of a new publisher comes roughly one week after Register subscribers inundated the company’s phone lines, live chats and social media accounts with complaints about missed newspaper deliveries. The interruption in service resulted from a business dispute between the Register and its previous newspaper-delivery vendor, the Los Angeles Times.

Kushner, co-owner Eric Spitz and their 2100 Trust purchased Freedom Communications in 2012. Spitz also will remain with Freedom.

Mirman told the Register that his first order of business is to grow subscriber numbers and get the company’s finances in order.

He holds a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a master’s in mathematics from the State University of New York in Stony Brook.

--City News Service

PHOTO Patch file photo.

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