News-Record.com

Arkansas Business is reporting that Wehco Media of Little Rock, which owns the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has asked for information about the News & Record and our sister papers, The Virginian-Pilot and The Roanoke Times.

Key quote attributed to Paul Smith, president and GM of the Democrat-Gazette: Wehco has not made a bid on the properties and is among many possible bidders, Smith said.

Before anyone gets all excited, those of us here don't know about any potential bidders. We do expect that a lot of media companies would ask for information.

Walter Hussman is CEO of Wehco. From his Wikipedia entry:

Hussman sums up his philosophy about newspapers by referring to a statement from his father.

"A newspaper has a number of constituencies. Among those are readers, advertisers, employees, creditors, and stockholders. If a newspaper and its publisher always keep those constituencies in that order: readers first, advertisers second, employees third, creditors fourth, and shareholders last, then the newspaper will do well journalistically and financially, and the interests of all constituencies will be well served."

Monday update: From another story -- "We operate a lot alike," Smith said. "They produce really good newspapers. They're good newspapers in good markets, and I'm sure there’s many, many companies interested in them."

John Morton, a Maryland-based newspaper analyst who has done consulting work for Walter Hussman, WEHCO's chief executive officer, said the papers could represent an interesting opportunity for WEHCO "and of course now is a good time to buy because the prices are down."

"Landmark has generally run decent newspapers, so you don't have to fix a lot of things when you go in there, which is not true of some other companies I could name," Morton said.