King County Journal sold to British Columbia media chain

The King County Journal has a new owner. But no one is saying yet what Black Press of Victoria, B.C., plans to do with the struggling suburban daily.

Peter Horvitz, whose family has owned the Journal since 1994, announced the sale to employees in a hastily arranged meeting at the company's Kent headquarters late Wednesday afternoon.

But he wouldn't disclose the price or say what the Canadian chain has in mind for the paper, which has been losing money and circulation for years.

"I'm not going to speak for Mr. [Black Press President David] Black," Horvitz said in a telephone interview. "It's for him and his people to tell our employees and the community what their plans are."

Black did not return calls and e-mails requesting comment. Horvitz said Black Press officials would visit the Journal on Monday and reveal more.

"They're being very vague about it," said Chris Chancellor, a Journal sports reporter. "I'd say morale is definitely low right now."

Horvitz said the sale of the Journal and some of its affiliated papers originally was scheduled to be announced Monday, but was moved up after a flurry of Internet-fueled speculation Wednesday about the Journal's future.

One rumor, which Horvitz said was inaccurate, suggested Black planned to transform the paper into a free-distribution tabloid and lay off the entire news staff.

But David Grant, a Journal reporter who heads the paper's unit of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, said Executive Editor Barbara Morgan was telling staff members Wednesday afternoon that their jobs were safe.

"We're hopeful that Black Press will continue to put out the King County Journal as a daily newspaper ... " Grant said. "But I don't think anyone's reassured at this point."

Another employee, who requested anonymity, said Black Press' record elsewhere makes many Journal workers apprehensive.

The employee pointed to Ohio, where the Canadian chain acquired the Akron Beacon Journal this summer for $165 million. Within weeks, Black Press announced it would lay off one-quarter of the news staff.

Horvitz said employees "of course would like more information. They will get more information on Monday."

He said the sale is scheduled to close next Thursday.

While Black Press' roots are in British Columbia, where it owns more than 75 community newspapers, the company is no newcomer to Western Washington. Through its Sound Publishing subsidiary, it already owns 18 newspapers in Kitsap, Island, San Juan, King and Pierce counties.

Most publish once or twice a week. Last year, however, the company began printing a free daily in Kitsap County.

That paper is aimed at commuters and other "people on the go," according to Sound's Web site, and is distributed at ferry terminals, coffee shops and other retail outlets.

With Black's strong presence in the region already, its acquisition of the King County Journal "makes perfect sense," said Larry Grimes, who heads a Maryland company that specializes in newspaper mergers and acquisitions.

Black also may seek to use the King County Journal's Kent press for its thriving commercial printing business, said David Martens, an Anacortes newspaper-industry consultant. The company already has printing plants on Bainbridge Island and in Skagit County.

Horvitz put the King County Journal up for sale in June, saying the paper had lost money for the past eight years and that his family-controlled company didn't have the resources to turn it around.

"It's a very bittersweet time," Horvitz said Wednesday. "I devoted 12 years to something I very much believed in. I've always believed that publishing a newspaper is more than just a job."

But it's also a business, he said, and he had to do what was best for his family.

Horvitz Newspapers, which owned several small dailies in Ohio and New York until 1987, entered the Northwest newspaper scene in 1994, buying the (Bellevue) Journal-American and Valley Daily News of Kent from Persis Media.

In 1993, the combined weekday circulation of the two papers was 67,000.

The papers changed names, then merged in a cost-cutting move to become the King County Journal in 2002, but troubles persisted. The paper's latest reported weekday circulation was 39,109.

In recent years, the company cut staff, froze wages and sold its Bellevue headquarters.

The Journal competes for suburban readers with both Seattle dailies. Weekday circulation at the two dailies dwarfs The Journal's, with The Seattle Times at 212,691 and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at 126,225.

In 1999, after The Times announced it would switch from afternoon to morning publication to compete head-on with the P-I and Horvitz's papers, Horvitz told a reporter that "our situation ... is the toughest newspaper situation one could face."

Horvitz said he had received at least two other offers for the Journal and the other papers. He would not identify those bidders.

Of Black, Horvitz said, "I have great respect for their abilities to operate newspapers successfully."

Horvitz, who lives in Kirkland, said his company will keep its two other dailies, the Peninsula Daily News of Port Angeles and The Daily Times of Maryville, Tenn. He said he would maintain an office in Bellevue and remain active in the community.

Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com