Gannett

Profits are flowing at newspaper companies like a river of black ink. Why, then, are investors treating these stocks like they are worthless fish wrap? Shares of the New York Times Co. are down 16.2 percent in the first seven months of the year; Gannett Co. has slipped 33.9 percent; Dow Jones & Co. is down 3 percent; and Tribune Co. is off 41 percent. "This is sort of a riddle," says Howard Ward, portfolio manager of the Rye, N.Y.-based Gabelli Growth Fund. "The news has been actually pretty good for newspaper stocks this year.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. pulled the plug yesterday on a plan to sell three Midwestern television stations for $81 million. Cockeysville-based Sinclair acquired the three stations -- WICS-TV of Springfield, Ill.; WICD-TV of Champaign, Ill.; and KGAN-TV of Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- during the summer as part of a $310 million transaction with Guy Gannett Communications. In July, Sinclair entered into an agreement to sell the assets of the three stations to Sunrise Television Corp. of St. Petersburg, Fla. The sale was conditioned on the receipt of Justice Department approvals necessary for Sunrise to acquire the three stations by today.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. continued its slim-down yesterday, selling three Midwestern television stations to Sunrise Television Corp. for $81 million in cash.Baltimore-based Sinclair is trying to get rid of some of the radio and TV stations that it picked up during a recent acquisition binge that turned the company into an industry heavyweight but also saddled it with some holdings that it couldn't afford to keep.The stations it is selling to Sunrise -- KGAN-TV of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; WICS-TV of Springfield, Ill.; and WICD-TV of Champaign, Ill. -- were obtained in one of those purchases, a $310 million multi-station deal with Guy Gannett Communications.

Continuing its aggressive acquisition strategy, Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said yesterday that it is buying Guy Gannett Communications' seven television stations for $310 million in cash.The deal gives Sinclair a collection of small-market stations affiliated with the Big Three networks: ABC, CBS and NBC.Sinclair has generally preferred to buy stations affiliated with newer broadcast networks: Fox, UPN and the WB Network. In Baltimore, for example, Sinclair owns Fox affiliate WBFF-TV and programs the WB Network's WNUV-TV.

Ann Devroy, 49, who covered the White House for the Washington Post, died of uterine cancer yesterday at her home in Northwest Washington.Born and raised in Green Bay, Wis., she worked for a Gannett newspaper in Bridgewater, N.J., before she was transferred to Gannett's Washington bureau in 1977.She covered the New Jersey and Vermont congressional delegations, the Supreme Court and the Carter and Reagan administrations before she joined the Post as political editor in 1985. She began covering the White House at the beginning of the Bush administration in 1989.

USAir, pilots talk beyond deadlineUSAir and its pilots union failed to agree on a concessionary contract by their self-imposed deadline but kept talking yesterday, amid signs they are narrowing their differences.Gerald Baliles, the former Virginia governor who is mediating the talks, issued a statement saying he "stopped the clock" at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, a half-hour before the deadline, and that talks would continue. He did not elaborate, but cited "slow but continuing" progress.USAir spokesman Richard Weintraub would say only that the two sides have made enough progress to merit continuing talks.

David WrightDavid Wright 74, the South African-born poet who said being deaf since childhood gave him an unusual view of truth, died of cancer on Aug. 28 in London. In addition to his poetry, he produced guides to Portugal, an autobiography, anthologies of verse, book reviews, a biography of fellow South African poet Roy Campbell and translations of "Beowulf" and "The Canterbury Tales." As a child, he caught scarlet fever, and the illness left him deaf.Barbara Hammer AvedonBarbara Hammer Avedon, 64, a screenwriter, feminist and peace activist who co-created the "Cagney & Lacey" TV series, died Wednesday of cancer in Los Angeles.

Paul Miller, 84, a lifelong newspaperman who was chairman of Gannett Co. and the Associated Press, died Wednesday at Good Samaritan Hospital in West Palm Beach, Fla., of complications from pneumonia, a hospital official said. As president, chief executive and chairman of Gannett, Mr. Miller oversaw the expansion of a small newspaper group into the nation's largest. He retired in 1980, after 33 years with Gannett. Mr. Miller was chairman of the Associated Press board from 1963 to 1977, the only former AP employee to hold that position.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The ailing Oakland Tribune was saved from extinction less than an hour before sunrise yesterday, when the non-profit Freedom Forum came to the rescue with a pledge to pump at least $5 million into the debt-ridden newspaper.Employees who just one day earlier had brought in cardboard boxes, expecting to pack up their belongings when the paper folded, were jubilant. They hugged each other, cried, toasted their good fortune with mineral water and danced in the newsroom after publisher Robert C. Maynard announced that "the Oakland Tribune is here to stay."