Louie Mullen buys more newspapers, has about 40; says he has a friendly banker, and it helps that his wife is a doctor

Louie Mullen

J. Louis "Louie" Mullen has bought eight newspapers in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, bringing his number of newspaper titles "up to roughly 40 across nearly a dozen states from the Mountain West to New Jersey," Corey Hutchins reports in his Substack newsletter Inside the News in Colorado.

Mullen, 37, of Buffalo, Wyo., told Hutchins he has been “fairly aggressively” buying small weekly and biweekly papers with loans from Buffalo-based First Northern Bank, which is “bullish” on newspapers. So is Mullen, who is on the board of directors of the National Newspaper Association, the lobby for weeklies and small dailies. He told Hutchins that he’s seeing “more opportunity” than ever, his print business is growting, "and circulation has been stable for the past 10 years," Hutchins writes. 

Mullen bought the daily Valley Courier in Alamosa from the Tompkins family of the Illinois-based News Media Corp. Also in the sale: the Monte Vista Journal, The Del Norte Prospector, The Conejos County Citizen, the Center Post-Dispatch, The Mineral County Miner, The South Fork Times and SLV Lifestyles.

Mullen's outfit isn't a typical newspaper chain. It doesn’t have a corporate umbrella, and he owns his papers as individual companies, he told Hutchins: “Every paper is different, every community is different, readership is different, demographics are different, politics are different. And I don’t put my own politics on any of these. These newspapers are supposed to be a reflection of the community that they’re in and serving, not whatever nonsense I believe.”

He said rural newspaper markets have been “the last to adopt new technologies, always have been — but these are still viable markets. And there is a large population in these rural markets that need news.”  Last year, Mullen bought the North Scott Press in Iowa, for many years one of the nation's standout weeklies.

Hutchins writes, "Asked what it takes for someone to get into the newspaper business in their 20s, Mullen said for his first acquisition the seller financed the deal and he brought in his newspaper publisher father in case things got hairy. For his second purchase, he brought along his two brothers. With some numbers behind him and a bit of a track record, someone offered him money to become a minority partner in a new deal, and then he brought on investors. Now, he said, he either owns outright a newspaper business he buys or he’s a majority partner with minority partners that are his friends. It helps that his wife is a physician."

“There are not many people in this country that do what I do,” Mullen told Hutchins. “It’s such a niche market, it makes it easier for me. I’m not some wunderkind.” He said anyone can do it if they are willing to take risks, bit there are fewer such people after the Great Recession. "He’s looking for more competition among his cohort," Hutchins concludes, quoting him: “Take a chance. I guarantee you can find some old codger who would love to give a kid a chance for next to nothing.”