Posted by Barton Lorimor

Sun Times Media has a new chief…

(Jeremy L.) Halbreich, 59, is a former general manager of the Dallas Morning News who has been vice chairman and chief executive officer of Sun-Times Media Holdings LLC. He will retain the CEO title at the company, which owns six other dailies in the Chicago area, the thrice-weekly Naperville Sun and the Pioneer Press chain of weeklies.

Here’s a more full biography, courtesy of the University of Texas. The position, as I’m sure you are all aware, became vacant after previous chairman James Tyree died of complications from stomach cancer.

Last week the AP credited Tyree with bringing the newspaper chain out of bankruptcy. Halbreich was the CEO at the same time. Here’s a snippet from Phil Rosenthal’s interview with him last year on the financial problems…

“The financial situation was a whole lot more dire than people recognized,” he said. “Obviously, through a bankruptcy process, if we felt there needed to be changes in certain areas … you’ve just been handed an engraved invitation.

“What pleasantly surprised me was the strength of the management team in terms of their flexibility and open-mindedness to change,” he said. “There were ideas that were percolating, and they simply were not in an environment where they could act.”

Halbreich describes the Sun-Times Media ownership group, which includes Chicago Blackhawks owner and liquor distributor Rocky Wirtz, as “entrepreneurial” and “closer to the business” than previous directors.

Sun Times Media has also decided to consolidate its advertising operations…

The move will let Sun-Times Media report larger audited circulation figures than it otherwise could for any of the papers individually.

“Reporting a combined circulation number will finally allow us to show the total depth and breadth of our reach in the Chicago area,” said Rick Surkamer, president and chief operating officer of Sun-Times Media.

It might also mean the papers’ advertising rates go up. Crain’s has more…

The change was prompted by a change by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which tracks newspaper circulations across the country, that allows papers under the same ownership and in the same geographic area to report their circulations as a group, as well as individually.

The Sun-Times will now report its circulations as a group to boost its visibility with national advertisers, Mr. Halbreich said.

“It lets us add together all the newspapers’ circulations and moves us up in the listing of national newspapers, which should translate into, we believe, more advertising sales,” he said.

The consolidation would have given the group a circulation of 424,184 for Sundays through the six months ended last September and a weekday circulation of about 439,855, he said.

In other human interest news…

* Judge clears McHenry’s prosecutor, Louis Bianchi, of using office for politics

* Top McHenry County prosecutor, assistant acquitted

* Rod Blagojevich lawyers up in court again today to discuss secret filing

* Former city official Anthony Boswell loses bid for jobless benefits: The Illinois Bureau of Employment Security has upheld the city’s claim that Anthony Boswell is not entitled to weekly benefits of $534 for 26 weeks because he resigned his $161,856-a-year job as director of the city’s Office of Compliance, Law Department spokeswoman Jennifer Hoyle said Wednesday.

* Man who sued city over arrest upset about bill for Gov. Ryan deposition

* A stork note: Mayor Daley’s former education chief Ron Huberman and Darren DeJong became the parents of daughter Abigail DeJong Huberman Monday. It is the second child for both dads: son Aiden was born in 2009.