Newport Daily News announced on Thursday afternoon that their parent company, The Edward A. Sherman Publishing Company, has been sold to Gatehouse Media.
“The sale includes The Newport Daily News, The Independent, Newport Life Magazine, South County Life Magazine and Mercury, among other publications, and Sherman Publishing’s commercial printing division,” Jonathan Zins, Managing Editor of The Newport Daily News wrote in a story on the newspaper’s website. ” Terms of the deal, which is scheduled to be finalized on Wednesday, Nov. 1, have not been disclosed, and no changes in staffing or production schedules have been announced”.
The Newport Daily News has been locally owned since it was founded in 1846.
The Mercury traces a lineage as one the oldest newspapers in the country. The history of that publication dates back to 1758, when the widow and son of James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s brother, established the Newport Mercury as a weekly publication, making Ann Franklin the first woman in the Colonies to publish and edit a newspaper. The Mercury was acquired by Edward A. Sherman Publishing in 1928.
Gatehouse Media, headquartered in New York, owns 125 daily newspapers and 314 weekly newspapers across the United States, including The Providence Journal and Rhode Island Lawyers Weekly in Rhode Island. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 27, 2013, before reemerging from the preplanned bankruptcy in November 2013. In the restructured plan Gatehouse stock was canceled and a new holding company for the parent — New Media Investment Group, Inc. was formed.