In a blistering six weeks, Denver-based Affiliated Media — the holding company for MediaNews Group, which owns the Pioneer Press — has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

That's very fast, but somewhat expected since Affiliated Media negotiated a "pre-packaged" deal with creditors to shed $765 million of its $930 million in debt. The few objections were swept away Thursday by Delaware Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey, who, by the way, also oversaw the bankruptcy of owners of the local Sun suburban-paper chain.

Affiliated Media pooh-bahs made it clear the "reorganization" didn't affect labor contracts or vendor payments at MediaNews papers. Shortly after Affiliated Media announced it would file Chapter 11, it emerged that the Pioneer Press was the only one of more than 150 MediaNews papers losing money — at least by some accounting methods. The PiPress staff agreed to take 9-10 percent pay cuts and make other concessions.

So of course, it will cheer up that newsroom that becase the bankruptcy plan was approved this month, MediaNews president Jody Lodovic will get a $250,000 bonus on top of a $500,000 bonus for his work on the bankruptcy, on top of the $1 million salary and a $500,000 annual bonus.

Lodovic, of course, is one of the two main leaders who got Affiliated Media into trouble; the other, MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton, will get a $634,000 salary and an annual bonus of up to $500,000, AP business writer Michael Liedtke reported. Nice work if you can get it.