William Dean Singleton, chief executive of the Media News Group is the publisher who controls the ink in the East and South Bay portions of the San Francisco metropolitan area. He is also apparently the chairman of the Associated Press, which is a producer cooperative formed about 160 years ago. The industry zine Paid Content excerpted from the published remarks Singleton delivered at the AP annual meeting in Washington D.C. Monday. Paid Content editor Staci Kramer writes:

“For a sense of the dramatic shift at the Associated Press in the digital age, consider this: by 2009, less than 25 percent of Associated Press revenues will come from member newspapers . . . This year, only 28 percent will come from member newspapers, he (Singleton) said: “Broadcasters, internet companies and international subscribers now provide the lion’s share of AP revenue.”

Elsewhere in Singleton’s universe of interests, the Newspaper Guild, of which I am a member, is attempting to organize the non-unionized staffs of the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune, Hayward Daily Review and other papers in the Alameda Newspapers Group. Singleton also owns the San Jose Mercury-News, which is a union shop.