A King County, Wash., superior court judge set July 18 as the day attorneys representing The Seattle Times and the Hearst Corp. will next do battle over the future of the joint operating agreement cloaking The Times and the Hearst-owned Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

At the hearing, Judge Greg Canova will hear arguments Hearst has made claiming that The Times’ financial loss in 2000 was a result of unexpected market forces — such as the strike by the papers’ journalists — and not because the JOA couldn’t be sustained.

The Times, in stating in late April that it wanted to end the JOA, kicked off an 18-month timetable to end the agreement. Hearst said such a move would kill the Post-Intelligencer, which currently has all of its printing, distribution and advertising operations handled by The Times.

Late month, Canova denied a move by Hearst to stop the countdown.

The Times said it needs out of the JOA because it has suffered three consecutive years of financial losses, thus enabling it to exercise a “loss clause” in the agreement.

“This is exactly what the [loss] clause in the contract was intended for,” said Frank Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times, in a statement. “It was created to protect this community’s local, independent, family-owned newspaper from a multibillion-dollar media conglomerate.”

The Times said it fears it will be forced to sell the paper to Hearst, citing Hearst’s JOA track record in San Antonio, Texas, and San Francisco. In those two cities, Hearst took over the surviving newspaper after operating the weaker of that city’s dailies.

Indiana JOA altered

In other JOA developments, Knight Ridder extended from 2020 to 2050 the agreement it has with the Journal Gazette Co. in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Under terms of the extension, Knight Ridder, owner of The News Sentinel, will increase its share of the agency from 55 percent to 75 percent while the Journal Gazette Co., owner of The Journal Gazette, will have a 25 percent share. The joint operating agreement governs the partnership and operation of Fort Wayne Newspapers, the agency that handles advertising sales, printing, distribution and administration of the two dailies.

The Fort Wayne JOA was created in 1950.