Marti Buscaglia, who lost her appointment as publisher of the OC Register last week because she embellished her resume, is embarrassed and out of a great job. The Register is out a savvy executive who could have helped the paper to generate badly needed cash. “This is such a blow for us,” said Scott Flanders, CEO of the Register’s Irvine-based holding company Freedom Communications. Flanders said the company will “take a breath,” likely “for months,” before it launches a publisher search; Chris Anderson, who was planning to relinquish the title in order to focus on Internet expansion, specialty pubs and other initiatives, will remain publisher indefinitely. Flanders said Buscaglia’s sales and marketing prowess would have helped him and Anderson,”we’re both content guys”,to generate profits in a declining newspaper industry. The company will need a ballpark $75 million a year to cover close to $1 billion it plans to borrow in order to buy out its private equity partners in 2009; Standard & Poor’s cited the prospect of added leverage when it recently lowered Freedom’s credit rating. It came to light last week that Buscaglia had falsely claimed to have a degree from Lima University in her native Peru. Buscaglia told the Register she embellished the resume when she was “young and stupid” and took “full responsibility for it.” Flanders said it was necessary to disqualify Buscaglia from the Register job, but that Freedom still might eventually hire her, though not in OC, its dominant market. Buscaglia can’t return to her former job as publisher of Minnesota’s Duluth News Tribune, which already has named her replacement. Editor & Publisher reported she will be allowed to remain as president of the International Newspaper Marketing Association. Flanders said it was a shame that Buscaglia was tripped up over education credentials: “She’s 54. With all that she’s accomplished, who cares?”…
More than 700 turned out at the Pacific Club to remember Marion Halfacre, philanthropist and owner of Fashion Island retailer Traditional Jewelers. Jeffrey John Bitetti led the frat brothers in singing “The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi” to widow Lula. Halfacre, 58, died June 8 of heart failure …
EE RR thanks the OC chapter of the Public Relations Society of America for giving him its first Distinguished Media Professional Award …
TV launch dates: KDOC’s “Daybreak OC” morning show, Sept. 10; KOCE’s 24-hour OC Channel, Sept. 12 …
Gov. Arnold has appointed two OC Republicans to the California Commission for Economic Development,San Juan Capistrano resident and Latino Coalition chair Hector Barreto and Western Growers Association CEO Thomas Nassif …
PR pro Joan Gladstone is new (and first woman) chair of the OC chapter of the Urban Land Institute …
Paul Marsden’s comically cantankerous creation, Pete Fundy of OCLegend.com, comes out with a book on the Fourth of July. “The Satire Driven Life” skewers many, including EE RR.
