Weldon Family to Sell Jefferson City (MO) News TribuneBack to News
JEFFERSON CITY, MO, March 27, 2008 – WEHCO Media Inc. of Little Rock, Arkansas, has agreed to acquire the Jefferson City (MO) News Tribune and related publications from the Weldon family. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
![""]("../../../../uploads/general/jeff-city-color.gif")
Dirks, Van Essen & Murray, a newspaper merger-and-acquisition firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represented the Weldon family in the transaction.
The sale will include the 18,100-circulation News Tribune, serving Missouri’s capital city; the daily Fulton (MO) Sun; and weekly California (MO) Democrat. The Fulton and California papers are located in adjacent markets.
Privately held WEHCO Media currently owns nine daily newspapers, including the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock and the Chattanooga (TN) Times Free Press, which the company acquired in 1998. WEHCO also owns 13 cable television operations.
In making the announcement, WEHCO president Walter E. Hussman, Jr. said the transaction likely would close by May 1.
The News Tribune has been owned by the Weldon family since 1927. Betty Weldon was publisher of the Jefferson City daily for nearly 50 years before her death in 2007. The family acquired the Fulton daily in 1995 and the California weekly in 1998.