Copley Family Exits Newspapers Completely -- With Sale of Weekly

By: E&P Staff Just over a century after Col. Ira Clifton Copley began Copley Press with a newspaper in Illinois, the family-owned chain announced the sale of its last print newspaper Thursday.

The Borrego (Calif.) Sun, a paid 3,000-circulation twice-monthly paper serving eastern San Diego County, is being purchased by British filmaker Patrick Meehan, Copley Press announced. The sales agreement follows by a day the announcement Copley was selling its last reamaining daily, the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Copley, which once owned about four dozen dailies and weeklies in California and the Midwest, began getting out of the business two years ago with the sale of several of its Midwest papers to GateHouse Media Inc.

JP Media Partners, a merger_and_acquisition firm based in Gold River, CA, represented Copley in the transaction. The sale is expected to be completed March 31.

Meehan, a part-time resident of Borrego Springs, is chairman and majority owner of HandMade Films, which produced such movies of "Life of Brian" and "The Long Good Friday."

"I love Borrego and the paper is an extremely important part of the community," Meehan said in a statement. "The paper is a voice of the people. I'm a great believer in that."

Meehan started his career as a manager and agent for a number of rock groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Black Sabbath and Elton John.