Filed under: Business MediaNews, the national newspaper chain that owns the Oakland Tribune and recently purchased the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News, has unveiled its proposal to cut wages for new reporters at the Merc by more than thirty percent. The offer, made in union contract negotiations, provides a stark glimpse of how MediaNews plans to manage a newspaper that its CEO Dean Singleton called earlier this year one of the “crown jewels” of the now-defunct Knight Ridder media empire. Under the MediaNews proposal, new reporters and photographers hired after the contract is signed would earn...