GateHouse Media buys Delaware newspapers

GateHouse Media continued to add to its rapidly-growing roster of newspapers, buying a string of Delaware newspapers, buying the Dover Post Co:

In addition to the 28,000-free distribution weekly Dover Post, the sale includes other Delaware non-dailies: the Middletown Transcript; Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times; Milford Beacon; Sussex Countian; Better Years; the Community News publications near Wilmington; plus the Express, a classified publication distributed throughout most of the Delmarva Peninsula.

Also included in the sale are the Dover Post web printing operation, which prints all the company newspapers plus other weeklies, monthlies and specialty publications, mostly in Delaware and Maryland. The printing plant includes a sheet-fed printing operation.

Dover Post Co. was founded in 1975 by Jim Flood Sr. and a group of local civic leaders.

GateHouse is an acquisitive chain of mostly smaller community papers based in Fairport, N.Y.

"That's why we thought GateHouse Media would be a good fit," Dover Post President Jim Flood Jr. said in a statement. "They concentrate on what we've always done, local news. Their strategy is to buy good local newspapers and to continue to let them do what they do best."

GateHouse Media owns hundreds of publications across the U. S., including The Carthage Press, Neosho Daily News, Pittsburg Morning Sun, Big Nickel, Neosho Post, Greenfield Vedette, and Aurora Advertiser in this area.