Masthead Maine papers sold to National Trust for Local News, which will own and operate most of the state's papers

Reade Brower

Maine news-media mogul Reade Brower has sold most of his newspapers to the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that seeks to "keep local news in local hands" and made a similar purchase of 24 papers along the Front Range in Colorado two years ago. Brower has owned most of the state's newspapers, and now the Trust will. It is looking at other states with an eye to similar purchases.

"The sale price was not disclosed, but it encompasses five of the state's six daily papers and 17 of its weeklies," reports Rachel Ohm of the Portland Press Herald, the state's largest daily and part of the sale. It includes all the assets of Masthead Maine, including the Sun Journal in Lewiston, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, the Times Record in Brunswick and 17 weekly papers in southern and western Maine, including the Forecaster group."

Elisabeth Hansen Shapiro

The deal is set to close in July. Elizabeth Hansen Shapiro, CEO and co-founder of the trust, "said the papers will continue to be managed by Masthead Maine CEO Lisa DeSisto and her staff," Ohn writes. Hansen Shapiro told her, "Our overall framework and set of values is that local news is really critical to communities being able to hang together and function well. . . . We have an overall set of principles and strategies for sustainability and for enhancing the quality of local service, but all the details of what that means for the papers is really something we're going to be working closely with Lisa and working with community members on."

Brower told Ohm: "This is the most independent route I think I could have taken that maintains both the independence of the press and continuity for staff and readers. I believe they want to continue to run this as a sustainable business, which I like, and I don't believe they will try and drain resources, which I like."

Steve Greenlee, executive editor of the Portland Press Herald and its Maine Sunday Telegram, said he viewed the sale as a win for the future of Maine's news industry: "This is the ideal outcome for us, and it's an amazing opportunity. . . . Those of us who devote our lives to journalism do it to serve the public good, and now our business model will support that mission entirely. This may be the most important moment in the history of Maine journalism."

The News Guild of Maine, which represents workers at the papers, said it was thankful that Brower had chosen to “pursue a nonprofit business model rather than sell his companies to the bad actors that have decimated news organizations across the country. We see the nonprofit model as one that can better sustain journalism’s dual nature as both a consumer product and a public good.”

Brower held onto six coastal weeklies, Lori Valigrar of the Bangor Daily News reports: 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, where Brower lives. Publisher Chris Crockett "said he was not given an explanation about why his group of papers was not included in the sale." The Associated Press notes, "Brower purchased MaineToday Media, the parent company of the Press Herald, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, in 2015 and added newspaper groups and newspapers over the next several years."