Lee Enterprises to Buy Disney-Owned Papers

Lee Enterprises Inc. will buy eight Oregon newspapers from ABC and its parent Walt Disney Co. for $185 million, Lee announced. The acquisition of the Pacific Northwest Publishing Group is the largest in the history of Lee Enterprises, an Iowa-based company that owns 16 television stations and 19 daily newspapers. The purchase also includes a shopper and a specialty publication group that covers eight markets in Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Utah. The Northwest Publishing Group includes two dailies in Oregon--the Albany Democrat-Herald and the Daily Tidings in Ashland--and six weeklies--the Newport News-Times, the Springfield News, Gresham Outlook, Cottage Grove Sentinel, Lebanon Express and Sandy Post. Lee Enterprises, headquartered in Davenport, Iowa, already owns the Corvallis Gazette-Times and KOIN-TV in Portland.