Over at Heat City, Nick Martin has a list of execs at Freedom Communications who got bonuses, even as the company headed toward bankruptcy.

Freedom holds about 30 newspapers and eight TV stations across the country, including the East Valley Tribune, which announced last week it would close at the end of the year. The bankruptcy is a reorganization plan; the company as a whole isn’t going out of business. It was just a way to help it deal with nearly a billion dollars in debt it ill-advisedly built up.

As PHXated has noted before, before you cry tears for the newspaper industry, remember that it brought most of its problems on itself.

… Which makes the bonuses all the more appalling. Top execs were apparently getting more than $100,000 each—just for helping to run the company into the ground.

Heat City is here. The list of bonuses is here.