Heat City

Chris Coppola

Though the fate of the struggling East Valley Tribune remains uncertain, one thing became clear on Thursday: Any future the Mesa newspaper has will be without its head editor, Chris Coppola.

The longtime Tribune newsman announced he will step down Jan. 8 to take a job as a suburban editor at the Arizona Republic.

The New Year’s Eve announcement marked the end of an especially turbulent year for the newspaper, one in which it laid off half its staff, brought home a Pulitzer Prize and narrowly staved off closure.

Christmas Eve came and went, but the potential deal to save the East Valley Tribune did not materialize as expected.

Earlier this month, a spokesman for the Mesa newspaper’s parent, Freedom Communications, said Dec. 24 would likely be the day the company would tell a federal bankruptcy court about the deal it hopes to strike with a Colorado businessman wanting to buy the Tribune.

But late Thursday, after nothing had been filed with the court, company spokeswoman Maya Pogoda said attorneys “have not finalized the agreement” with hopeful buyer Randy Miller.

Randy Miller

When Colorado businessman Randy Miller traveled to Mesa last week, he acted very much like the man who would soon be in charge of the Pulitzer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune.

He toured its facilities. He introduced himself to the staff. He even handed out job applications across the building, telling employees to reapply for positions under his Thirteenth Street Media company, which hopes to take over the paper early next year.

But Miller’s plans appear to be presumptuous. The reality is that Miller has a long way to go – and possibly competition to fight off – before he can expect to be called “boss” at the newspaper that was slated to be shut down before he offered to buy it last month.

And in fact, there is still a chance Miller won’t buy the East Valley Tribune at all – because in the end, the decision will be up to someone else entirely.

Randy Miller

Even though no deal has been formalized to save the Pulitzer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune, a potential buyer is already telling its employees to reapply for their jobs.

Staffers of the Mesa newspaper received an email on Friday containing a job application [PDF] for Thirteenth Street Media, the Colorado company reportedly hoping to buy the ailing publication. The company has said it would keep “a significant” number of employees – but not all of them – if it buys the paper.

The email also told employees that Thirteenth Street Media’s owner, Randy Miller, would be in town this week to decide which staffers to keep if the deal goes through.

While those revelations may have been surprising enough for employees since the deal with Miller is nowhere near official, the real shockers came in the job application itself.