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McClatchy Co. Sells Philadelphia Newspapers to Local Investors

The McClatchy Company announced yesterday that it had sold The Philadelphia Inquirer along with its sister paper, the Daily News, to a group of local investors new to the newspaper world for $562 million, paying $515 million in cash and assuming $47 million in pension liabilities, writes The New York Times. “The next great era of Philadelphia journalism begins today with this announcement,” said Brian Tierney, a lead investor and ad executive.

The new owners in Philadelphia, conducting business as Philadelphia Media Holdings, include “civic, labor and corporate leaders, entrepreneurs and private investors,” according to their statement. The group said they would leave current newsroom management in place and want to more aggressively market and sell ads for the newspapers, while upgrading their joint website, www.philly.com.

Newspaper industry analyst John Morton said that when local business people own a newspaper, conflicts of interest become a concern that “may be aggravated by the fact that these new owners don’t come out of a newspaper culture and might not be sensitive to the damage to a newspaper’s journalism and to its future by using it for some kind of personal agenda.”