In a memo to company employees, MaineToday Media publisher Lisa DeSisto wrote the newspapers were paid $537,988.68 under the company’s employee theft insurance policy, to recoup money that she wrote "Connor took for unauthorized personal use." In April 2013, Connor was accused of misappropriation of about $530,000 of the newspapers' funds for personal expenses and unauthorized salary increases for himself.
We feel the company was mismanaged."Ĭonnor stepped down as publisher of the newspapers for undisclosed reasons in October, 2011.
MaineToday promised that it could put its newspapers on a sound financial footing, but over the next two and a half years there were more than 160 job cuts at the Press Herald, the company was sued for failing to pay a paper bill, and the local guild president said his members "feel their investment in Rich Connor was squandered and they're angry about it. If it were not for the severe recession, we would not have done so." Īs part of the sale, Portland Newspaper Guild members took a 10 percent pay cut in exchange for 15 percent ownership in MaineToday Media. We were very reluctant to sell and are very sad about it. At the time of the sale, a spokesman for The Seattle Times Company said the Maine newspapers "provided a very good return during our 10-year tenure. įinancial details of the sale were not released, though a Seattle Times report estimated them at less than half the $213 million paid in 1998. The company established a headquarters at One City Center in downtown Portland.
Connor, publisher of Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with financing from HM Capital Partners and Citizens Bank. Blethen, ancestor of The Seattle Times ' owners, who was born in Knox County and grew up in Waldo County, Maine, before becoming editor in chief and owner of the Seattle Daily Times in 1896.Īfter more than a year on the market, on June 15, 2009, the Blethen papers were sold to MaineToday Media, Inc., headed by Maine native Richard L. The Times set up an "independent subsidiary" to run its Maine operations, called Blethen Maine Newspapers. Guy Gannett managers said they sold to the Times because of shared values-both companies were fourth-generation family-owned news organizations: "Of all the companies in the newspaper business, The Seattle Times is one most like our company in the sense of independence, of family ownership, and commitment to the community," said Guy Gannett spokesman Tim O'Meara. The Seattle Times Company, an independent publisher of three dailies and several weeklies in Washington state, purchased all of Guy Gannett's newspapers for a price reported at $213 million. It sold its television stations to Sinclair Broadcasting. Gannett, in 1921, and managed by a family trust from 1954 until 1998, when the trust left the media business. The company was founded by its namesake, Guy P. MaineToday's newspaper properties were, for most of the 20th century, the core of Guy Gannett Communications, a local family-owned business not related to the larger Gannett chain.
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