Campbell Quits as Publisher of Daily News

Byron C. Campbell resigned Monday as publisher of the Daily News in Van Nuys, effective immediately, citing “a difference in management style” with the newspaper’s owner, Jack Kent Cooke.

Campbell, 53, would not elaborate on his differences with Cooke, but did confirm that one area of disagreement was the dismantling earlier this year of the newspaper’s 12-member human resources department, which handled personnel policies, training and employee benefits. The personnel department now handles those functions.

That decision, insiders said, is one of several cost-cutting measures Cooke has insisted on in recent months at the paper.

Many of these disagreements are played out through Cooke’s point man in Van Nuys, James Lacher, who holds no title at the paper but is executive vice president of Jack Kent Cooke Inc. Lacher did not return a call Monday.

Campbell, who said he does not yet have another job, is the fourth senior executive in recent weeks to leave the newspaper over apparently similar disputes. The others are Thamas G. Osborn, vice president and director of circulation; Thomas E. Griffiths, director of marketing and public relations, and Julie Aguilar, manager of the human resources department. All served on a seven- to eight-member operating committee dismantled since Cooke and Lacher arrived, Campbell said.

Cooke, the sports entrepreneur who bought the paper in December, 1985, for $176 million from Tribune Co. of Chicago, claimed that he did not know why Campbell was leaving, but said from his headquarters in Middleburg, Va., that “we have in mind a successor, but we’re not yet ready to name him.”

Editor Timothy Kelly said he plans to stay, but said he is not interested in succeeding Campbell.

Campbell joined the Daily News, which has a weekday circulation of 153,441, as publisher in August, 1983. Before that, he was president and publisher of the two Tribune Co. newspapers in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the News and Sun-Sentinel.