Knight-Ridder Inc. is keeping the Detroit Free...

Knight-Ridder Inc. is keeping the Detroit Free Press alive with financial infusions, a lawyer for both of Detroit’s daily newspapers said. Without a limited antitrust exemption to let the Gannett Co.-owned Detroit News and the Free Press merge advertising, circulation and production operations, the Free Press would face “near-certain death,” attorney Philip Lacovera said at a federal hearing on the competing newspapers’ request to merge business operations. The proposal is being challenged by Mayor Coleman Young, who says a merger would decrease editorial independence, and newspaper employee unions that fear jobs would be lost under a joint operation.