The alternative weekly newspaper of Tucson, the aptly named Tucson Weekly, has been sold.
A company called 10/13 Communications purchased the Weekly, as well as another newspaper in Tucson, Inside Tucson Business, which is also published weekly.
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The sale was announced by a press release.
10/13 Communications has snatched up quite a few smaller community newspapers, publications, and online news websites around Arizona, including the Daily News-Sun, Glendale Today, Peoria Today, Surprise Today, Ahwatukee Foothills News, Clipper Marketplace, U and Your Home, the Explorer, Marana News, Foothills News and Desert Times. A few of those publications were just purchased earlier this month. The company also purchased the onetime Pulitzer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune after it went into bankruptcy (and is now a shell of its former self).
Tucson Weekly was owned by Wick Communications, which owns 26 community newspapers, nearly all of them in the western United States, and about half of them in Arizona. The Sierra Vista-based company owns papers such as the Sahuarita Sun, Nogales International, and Douglas Dispatch.
The staff at Tucson Weekly don't seem to know much about the sale. Editor Dan Gibson wrote in a blog post, "In the words of the press release I was handed, 'Terms of the transaction were not announced.'"
Weekly co-founder Doug Biggers wrote on Facebook, "Doesn't bode well....but, perhaps creates an opportunity for a new media company to emerge."
Here's what 10/13 Communications president Randy Miller has to say in that press release:
"The addition of Tucson Weekly and Inside Tucson Business is great for our company and for increasing our reach and effectiveness for advertisers in the Tucson market. With these publications and websites, along with the Explorer that dominates the northwest area and our other recent acquisitions, our Tucson Local Media group is positioned to be the number one media company in Tucson."Tucson Weekly just published an issue commemorating its 30-year anniversary earlier this year.
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