The story
Ottaway newspapers
James H. Ottaway Sr. founded the company in November 1936, when he purchased the Bulletin, a semi-weekly paper in Endicott, New York, that he converted to a daily within a year. Ottaway added the Oneonta Star in 1944, followed two years later by the Pocono Record.
The company was a seller more often than a buyer in the 2000s (decade), however, and several observers—including the New York Post, The Boston Globe and Ottaway's own Cape Cod Times—speculated that News Corporation intended to sell all or part of the company in the near future.
Dow Jones Local Media Group
Under Dow Jones' ownership, Ottaway sold several newspapers in recent years, however, most recently in December 2006, when the company dealt nearly half its daily newspapers to Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (CNHI) for $287.9 million (including real estate).
Until December 2006, the following dailies and weeklies were also part of the Ottaway chain. Other than the California and Connecticut newspapers, they are all now part of CNHI.
Santa Cruz Sentinel daily of Santa Cruz, California
The News-Times daily of Danbury, Connecticut
The Spectrum weekly of Milford, Connecticut
Traverse City Record-Eagle daily of Traverse City, Michigan
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The Grand Traverse Herald weekly of Traverse City, Michigan
Cooperstown Crier weekly of Cooperstown, New York
Daily Star of Oneonta, New York
Press-Republican of Plattsburgh, New York
Daily Item of Sunbury, Pennsylvania
The Danville News weekdays only, of Danville, Pennsylvania
These four daily newspapers were sold by Ottaway to CNHI for $182 million in 2002:
The Herald of Sharon, Pennsylvania
The Independent of Ashland, Kentucky
The Free Press of Mankato, Minnesota
The Joplin Globe of Joplin, Missouri
Also, Ottaway sold the three daily newspapers of Essex County Newspapers Inc. to The Eagle-Tribune of North Andover, Massachusetts, in 2002, for $70 million. The Eagle-Tribune, along with the Essex papers listed below, was later purchased by CNHI.
Daily News of Newburyport of Newburyport, Massachusetts
Gloucester Daily Times of Gloucester, Massachusetts
Salem Evening News of Salem, Massachusetts
Sale to Newcastle
On September 4, 2013, News Corp announced that it would sell the Dow Jones Local Media Group to Newcastle Investment Corp.—an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group, for $87 million. The newspapers will be operated by GateHouse Media, a newspaper group owned by Fortress. News Corp. CEO and former Wall Street Journal editor Robert James Thomson indicated that the newspapers were "not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio" of the company. GateHouse in turn filed prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 27, 2013, to restructure its debt obligations in order to accommodate the acquisition. Newcastle combined Local Media Group with the post-bankruptcy GateHouse Media later in 2013 to form New Media Investment Group.
From Wikipedia’s article on Local Media Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3