The Austin American-Statesman, a newspaper so PC it is known as the Statesperson, is up for sale. Cox, owner of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Palm Beach Post, among others, is unloading most of its newspapers. From Editor & Publisher:
NEW YORK Another major daily is going on the block. This time, Cox Enterprises is looking to unload the Austin American-Statesman.
The Atlanta-based company retained Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to assist with the sale.
The auction also includes Cox’s community newspapers in North Carolina, Colorado, and Texas, as well as its direct mail operation Valpak.
… The other newspapers involved in the auction are the North Carolina properties The Daily Reflector in Greenville, the Rocky Mount Telegram, The Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, and Savings Source Direct.
In Texas: the Waco Herald-Tribune, Longview News-Journal, The Marshall News Messenger, The Lufkin Daily News, and the Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches are on the block. In Colorado the papers are The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction and The Nickel.
The company said it will retain ownership of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Palm Beach Post in Florida, and the Dayton Daily News in Ohio.
… The Austin American-Statesman is the second major daily in weeks to be put up for sale. The privately held Copley Press announced in July it was seeking buyers for its flagship The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Cox has always seemed to me to be one of the more intelligently run newspaper companies, but this seems like an odd choice. Austin is probably one of the best cities in America in which to operate a newspaper: growing steadily, highly literate, relatively high income, a state capital, &c. People in Austin seem like newspaper readers, online if not necessarily in print. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s experiment with independent local ownership is going a little rougher than expected, but that model might work better in Austin.