Bob Balzer, Publisher, San Bernardino Sun —Meet a Man Who Buys Ink By the Barrel

An ancient Chinese philosopher once advised to keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Or was it Don Corlione in the “Godfather?”

In any event, the idea never took into consideration the mergers and acquisitions of recent years. Two newspapers that once stood in two halves of the Inland Empire, owned by two competing groups, suddenly found themselves part of a big new family. This occurred in April of 1999 when the Los Angeles News Group bought the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin from the Donrey Group and the San Bernardino Sun from Gannett. Publishing, like politics, makes for strange bedfellows.

It would have to take a certain kind of man to bring the two together.

Someone whose work history had put him in both camps at one time and another. That man is Bob Balzer.

Balzer, 54, was named publisher of the Sun and CEO of the Inland Empire Newspapers in June of 2004. In this role, he oversees both the Sun and the Daily Bulletin. Back in June of 1999, just after the LANG takeover, he was named vice president of the Los Angeles Newspaper group and was also named publisher of the Daily Bulletin.

That made him responsible for the daily operations of Ontario’s paper as well as other publications like City News and 210 Magazine. It also made him a member of the four person executive board of C.I.P.S., which is jointly owned by

Media News Group and the Tribune Company, parent to the L.A. Times. C.I.P.S. is the largest private carrier household delivery company in the U.S.

Bob has been with the parent company, MediaNews Group for eight years. Before that he was vice-president of advertising and marketing for LANG (the Los Angeles Newspaper Group). Ironically, he also spent three years with Gannet, the former owner of the San Bernardino Sun as well as 17 years with the Los Angeles Times and eight years with the two predecessors of the Daily Bulletin, The Progress Bulletin and the Daily Report.

Balzer has or is serving on the board of directors of the Children’s Fund, the National Orange Show, The San Gabriel Valley Economic Council, the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, the Pomona Valley Medical Center Foundation, the Chaffey College Foundation, Cal Poly Pomona’s University Education Trust and the California Newspaper Publishers Association.

One of the burning issues for many people today is the aforementioned merger of media. Radio, TV and, to a great degree, newspapers, are all becoming part of one big corporate family. Many critics are worried that the local flavor of an individual media outlet will be lost. Indeed, already the sports pages of the Sun and Daily Bulletin are exact clones, and several people have gone from Ontario to San Bernardino to fill combined posts.

This issue has been address by Bob Balzer in a statement to the Business Journal. “I truly believe a community newspaper is vital to the health of our area.

“The Daily Bulletin is the communities citizen’s business and our employees are its caretakers. As publisher, I am privileged to work with people who take this obligation as seriously as I do. The Daily Bulletin and its predecessors have been in the Inland Valley for more than 120 years. I consider it my responsibility to continue its rich history into the future. Our owner, Dean Singelton, gives his newspapers total local autonomy, which means the Daily Bulletin will remain its community newspaper for years to come. Our association in the greater Los Angeles market with other newspapers our company owns enables the Daily Bulletin to have greater content available to it. This, in turn, has given our readers a better newspaper.”

Balzer is a 36-year newspaper veteran. Both he and his wife of 33 years, Debora, grew up here in the San Bernardino County area. They have two homes. One is in Rancho Cucamonga and the other is in Lake Arrowhead. Their 17-year-old daughter, Ashley, attends Chaffey Junior College.

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