Maine media mogul Reade Brower said Monday that he has sold his five daily newspapers, including the Portland Press Herald, and 17 weeklies to a national newspaper nonprofit.
Missing from the sale were six weeklies stretching along Maine’s northern coast.
Those not included are The Ellsworth American, The Mount Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, The Courier-Gazette in Rockland, The Republican Journal in Belfast, The Camden Herald and The Free Press in Camden.
Brower said he was keeping those newspapers, six specialty publications and Mail Maine, a direct mail product, and that they were never part of the original Masthead Maine sale package. The Camden Herald was converted into a free, direct mail weekly publication about two months ago, he said. It is sent to 8,000 homes in the Camden, Rockport and Lincolnville area.
“I live in this area and I may retain them, but I don’t really know,” he said. “But they’re important to me because my home is in Camden.”
Brower bought The Ellsworth American, which was founded in 1851, in July 2018 along with its sister weekly paper, The Mount Desert Islander. Brower founded The Free Press in 1985 and bought The Courier-Gazette in 2012.
Chris Crockett, the publisher of the coastal papers, said the group has been self-sufficient with its own printing operation in Ellsworth. Over the past year it has seen higher-than-anticipated growth in digital subscriptions and it is maintaining its print circulation. He said the outlook for the papers is positive.
Asked if he was disappointed to not be included in the sale, Crockett said, “I adore Reade, so I’m happy to continue moving forward with him as the owner. I also think this was a great opportunity for the Portland group.”
The other newspapers in the Masthead group were sold to the nonprofit National Trust for Local News in collaboration with the Maine Journalism Foundation. The trust brings money and contacts to create deals to keep local newspapers under local ownership. The foundation was formed to help raise money to buy the Masthead group. Financial terms of the sale were not revealed.