Local Media Group, Inc.

Local Media Group, Inc. was a newspaper publishing company that was bought and sold many times over the years. The end of the company came in September 2013, when then-owner News Corporation sold the business to Newcastle Investment Corporation, an affiliate of private equity company Fortress Investment Group, for $87 million. After the deal, the Local Media Group newspapers became part of GateHouse Media, a large newspaper publishing business controlled by Fortress Investment Group.

Local Media Group published eight daily newspapers, 15 weeklies and a collection of magazines in seven U.S. states.

Local Media Group was previously known as Dow Jones Local Media Group. The company was a division of Dow Jones & Company, which News Corporation acquired in December 2007. The community newspaper company was previously known as Ottaway Newspapers, which Dow Jones acquired in 1970.

The Ottaway organization was founded in November 1936 when James H. Ottaway Sr. purchased the Bulletin, a semi-weekly newspaper in Endicott, N.Y. Within a year he converted it into a daily and in 1944 began buying other publications, starting in the northeast and eventually crossing the country. Ottaway sold the company to Dow Jones in 1970. In 2009, after News Corporation acquired Dow Jones & Company, the name of the division was changed from Ottaway Newspapers to Dow Jones Local Media Group.

In 1973, then-president James H. Ottaway Jr. described the company's editorial philosophy as being "to maintain high standards of excellence in news content, editorial quality and public service. We pursue these professional standards of journalism with a strict policy of local editorial independence, tempered only by the requirements of news and editorial quality. Local autonomy is not a license to publish a poor newspaper, but the freedom and responsibility to publish a great one."

Newspapers owned by Local Media Group included:

In California:
Stockton Record

In Maine:
York County Coast Star
York Weekly

In Massachusetts:
Barnstable Patriot
Cape Cod Times
Dartmouth Chronicle
Middleboro Gazette
Nantucket Inquirer and Mirror
New Bedford Standard-Times
Somerset Spectator

In New Hampshire:
Exeter News-Letter
Hampton Union
Portsmouth Herald
Rockingham News

In New York:
Middletown Times Herald Record

In Oregon:
Ashland Daily Tidings
Medford Mail Tribune

In Pennsylvania:
Pocono Record