MEDIA

Knight-Ridder to Sell Specialty Publication: The Journal of Commerce, a newspaper specializing in coverage of shipping and world trade, will be bought by the Economist Group of Britain, the publisher of the Economist weekly magazine, for $115 million, in a deal expected to close in April. The sale would mark the 168-year-old publication’s transition from ownership by a mass-market media company to a group that has long focused on business news. The Economist Group of Britain is also acquiring Florida Shipper, Gulf Shipper, Traffic World, industry directories and electronic database products. The New York-based Journal has a daily circulation of 22,000. Knight-Ridder is based in Miami.