GateHouse Media Buys 'Dover (Del.) Post' and Group

By: E&P Staff The Dover Post Co., publisher of non-dailies across Delaware, has been sold to GateHouse Media Inc., John Cribb of Cribb, Greene & Associates said Wednesday.

Cribb, a newspaper brokerage firm with offices in Bozeman, Mont. and Charlottesville, Va., who represented the seller in the transaction. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.

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."

Flood said all Dover Post Co. employees have been hired by GateHouse at their current pay rate, and that their benefits will see a small improvement.

"That, of course, was another strong point," Flood said. "We have many employees, some over 20 years, who have played an important role in our success. We wanted them taken care of."

Jim Flood Jr. and Mary Kaltreider, a daughter of Jim Flood Sr., will continue working on a consulting basis for a short time to ease the transition, Cribb said.