Thomson to Sell 3 Arizona Dailies

Thomson Corp., which is shedding newspapers to focus on electronic information, agreed to sell three Arizona dailies to closely held Freedom Communications Inc., publisher of the Orange County Register. Terms weren’t disclosed. Freedom will get the Tribune in suburban Phoenix, the Daily News-Sun in Sun City and the Yuma Daily Sun, with a combined daily circulation of 130,000. Toronto-based Thomson plans to focus on distributing legal and financial information electronically and on expanding its Internet units. Irvine-based Freedom publishes 25 newspapers and owns eight TV stations. Thomson, which has agreements to sell 45 other U.S. dailies, is still seeking buyers for the Connecticut Post and five Canadian dailies. It is not selling its flagship daily, the Toronto-based Globe & Mail. The sale agreements so far total more than $2 billion, which Thomson plans to use to pay down debt.