Alexis Wells
The Portland Press Herald front page on Tuesday morning.
July 11, 2023
Press Herald and related newspapers will be sold to nonprofit trust
Alexis Wells
The Press Herald is among the properties being acquired by a nonprofit.
On Monday, the fate of local news was finally determined as a national nonprofit entered an agreement to purchase the Portland Press Herald and all of the other assets of Masthead Maine.
According to the Portland Press Herald, the National Trust for Local News plans to take over ownership of five daily newspapers, including Maine's largest daily newspaper, the Portland Press Herald, which has paid circulation of 38,000.
The deal includes the Sun Journal in Lewiston, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, the Times Record in Brunswick and 17 weekly papers.
Masthead Media principal Reade Brower owns other weeklies that are not part of the deal (including Ellsworth American, Mount Desert Islander and Courier-Gazette in Rockland), the Press Herald reported.
The National Trust for Local News, founded in 2021, is a nonprofit whose mission is to provide long-term sustainability for local news sources. It also owns a chain of 24 community newspapers, all part of the Colorado News Conservancy, the Press Herald reported. The trust's website lists its headquarters in Lexington, Mass.
The deal is expected to preserve Masthead Media's 400 jobs. CEO Lisa DeSisto will continue to manage operations.
The closing date is set for the end of July.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed by either Brower or the nonprofit's CEO, Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, whose LinkedIn profile indicates she is based in greater Boston.
A story in the Press Herald in April said Brower was seeking $15 million for the newspaper portfolio. It was at that time that the possibility of nonprofit ownership was first made public — with support being gathered in Maine for a nonprofit known as the Maine Journalism Foundation.
The deal announced this week goes a slightly different direction, but helps preserve local news across the state and also ends months of speculation about the future of the newspaper group.
Brower, who lives in Camden, bought the Press Herald and other new properties in 2015 from S. Donald Sussman.
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