In Brief

Baldwin Technology Co. Inc. named Steffen Weisser vice president of global operations and Peter Hultberg vice president of global sales and marketing.

Hearst Corp. named Beth Polish director of corporate innovation and senior vice president of Hearst Interactive Media.

Freedom Communications Inc. named Burl Osborne interim chief executive officer.

The San Francisco Chronicle told News & Tech that it will release an announcement about its new printing and distribution infrastructure later this week. Transcontinental Inc. built a $200 million facility in Fremont, Calif., to print the daily, but neither Hearst Corp. nor Transcontinental has publicly said when the plant will open for business. Web sites operated by unions representing Chronicle press operators said the new facility will begin producing the Chronicle July 1.

German publisher M. DuMont Schauberg went on-edition with its six-wide Cortina press from Koenig & Bauer AG.

Mediaspectrum Inc. released ContentWatch 2.0, an upgraded version of its Web-based content management software.
www.mediaspectrum.net

The (Toronto) Globe and Mail unveiled a procurement policy governing the purchase of newsprint and other paper stocks, requiring its suppliers to be environmentally responsible. The newspaper is the first major North American daily to develop an ancient forest-friendly policy, according to environmental publishing advocate Canopy.

The Associated Press said it wants to strike more lucrative licensing deals with Web sites to offset the loss of revenues from newspapers and broadcasters. Currently, AP’s four largest online deals are with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, AP said. In addition, the agency said it would reduce its fees by $45 million for newspapers and broadcasters in 2010.

Nstein Technologies Inc. said the Financial Times’ FT Search Inc. is using its Text Mining Engine app for the beta launch of its Newssift business insight tool.
www.nstein.com

MaineToday Media Inc. completed its purchase of the Portland Press Herald, Maine Sunday Herald and two other daily papers in Maine from the Seattle Times Co. Richard L. Connor, who leads MaineToday, said he expects all the papers to be profitably by year-end. Connor also owns The Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Italian newspaper publisher Societa Editrice Corriere del Ticino purchased an evolution 371 press from WIFAG, the press supplier said. The new press is configured as four four-high towers with one jaw folder. The machine, to go on-edition in June 2010, can produce up to 95,000, 128-page tabloid copies per hour, all in full color.
www.wifag.ch