Three area weekly newspapers sold to New Jersey firm

The Free Press, Mankato, Minn.
·1 min read

Dec. 13—MANKATO — Three weekly newspapers in the Mankato region, as well as four others in the state have been sold to CherryRoad Media.

They will acquire the Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch, the St. James Plaindealer and the Tri-County News in Cottonwood, as well as the Granite Falls Advocate-Tribune, Montevideo American News, Redwood Falls Gazette and the Crookston Times.

The sale will be effective Jan. 1, 2022.

All the papers acquired by CherryRoad were currently owned by Gannett and were part of the USA Today Network. Gannett and Gatehouse Media newspaper companies merged in August 2019 and assumed the Gannett name.

Earlier this year, New Jersey-based CherryRoad Media founded the Rainy Lake Gazette in International Falls and bought the Cook County News-Herald in Grand Marais in 2020.

CherryRoad is a subsidiary of Parsippany, New Jersey-based CherryRoad Technologies, which is involved in a number of business ventures. The company has been purchasing weekly newspapers in several states.