Acquisitions

Kathy Svidal and MCM Media have acquired the Devil’s Lake Journal and the Country Peddler in North Dakota from Gannett Co., Inc. MCM Media owns the Thief River Falls Times and The Northern Watch in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, where Kathy Svidal serves as publisher. Svidal was previously publisher of the Devil’s Lake Journal for more than 35 years. She will be bringing back Louise Oleson, former editor at the Journal for 17 years. Dirks, Van Essen & April, a media merger and acquisition firm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represented Gannett in the transaction.

The Star-news in Mccall, Idaho, has been sold to Cherryroad Media. The Star-news was owned for almost 50 years by Central Idaho Publishing Inc., which is the partnership between Tom and Tomi Grote of Mccall and A.L. “Butch” Alford Jr., of Lewiston. The Alford and Grote families were represented by John Cribb of Helena, Montana.

AIM Media Midwest, LLC has acquired the publishing assets of Bryan Publishing Company and Napoleon, Inc., serving the communities of Bryan and Napoleon located in northwest Ohio. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. In conjunction with the transaction, AIM announced the hiring of all current employees and the operations will remain under the direction of its current president, Sally Heaston, who is being promoted to publisher. Jeremy L. Halbreich, chairman and CEO of AIM Media Management, said: “Christopher Cullis and his family have served these communities extremely well since 1949 and we salute them for their many years of dedication and commitment.” Cullis and his family were represented by Jeffrey Potts of Cribb, Cope & Potts.

Silver City Independent Publishing Co. LLC, publisher of the Daily Press and Independent in Silver City, New Mexico, has agreed to purchase the Silver City Sun-news and the Deming Headlight from Gannett Co., Inc. Nickolas Seibel, owner of the Silver City Independent Publishing Co. and editor and publisher of the Daily Press, will merge the Silver City Sun-news into the Daily Press and Independent. Dirks, Van Essen & April represented Gannett in the transaction.

Yellowstone Newspapers, which includes 13 daily, twice-weekly and weekly newspapers, has been sold to Adams Publishing Group, according to John Cribb, Cribb, Cope & Potts who represented Yellowstone Newspapers and the Sullivan family in the sale. Yellowstone Newspapers publications included in the sale are the Livingston (Montana) Enterprise, Big Timber Pioneer, Dillon Tribune, Judith Basin Press, Lewistown News-argus, Stillwater County

News, Carbon County News, Laurel Outlook, Big Horn County News, Independent Press, Miles City Star, Terry Tribune and the Glendive Ranger Review. The sale ends a 57-year history for the Yellowstone group and John Sullivan, which began in 1965 with the purchase of the Miles City Star, and has become the state’s largest Montana-owned newspaper group. Also included in the sale were the group’s commercial printing operations.

Kanye West has acquired Parler, the alternative social media platform favored by many conservatives.

HD Media has purchased the Webster Echo, a weekly newspaper in Webster Springs, West Virginia. Webster County’s paper of record, The Echo began publishing in circa 1890 as the State Gazetteer and was most recently owned by Charles and Kelli Cochran.