Gannett Swaps Papers with Georgia Media Chain
By AAN Staff
february 18, 2004 07:06 pm
The deal reminds Nashville Scene writer Matt Pulle of the arrangement Village Voice Media and New Times Media made in October 2002 to each close a paper that competed in a market dominated by the other. That plan threw the Justice Department into a snit. In a surprise move Monday, Gannett traded its only sizable Georgia paper, The Times in Gainesville, to Morris Multimedia in exchange for two small papers in Tennessee. Gannett also acquired two weeklies in Tennessee's Rutherford County. "While the swap of several small newspapers is hardly Comcast buying Disney, it marks the crowning achievement in Gannett's stranglehold of the Middle Tennessee area," Pulle writes.