• by Tom Siebert , November 24, 2006

GateHouse Media, Inc. has acquired the Messenger Post Newspapers from Canandaigua Messenger, Inc., which includes the Daily Messenger, a daily newspaper with a circulation of 13,000 serving Canandaigua in the Finger Lakes Region of northwest New York. Also included in the deal are 10 weekly newspapers serving the suburbs of Rochester, New York.

GateHouse became a publicly traded company last month. Earlier this year, it moved its headquarters from Chicago to the Rochester suburb of Fairport. Gatehouse owns 423 community publications in 18 states and 230 related Web sites reaching about 9 million people.

Messenger Post Newspapers, which employs 176 people, was put up for sale in August, after drawing unsolicited offers from other media companies, publisher George Ewing Jr. told the Associated Press.

Ewing has been publisher and owner since 1992. His family bought nine of the weekly newspapers in 1996 and added a tenth in 1999. The combined distribution of the weeklies is just under 100,000.

"The decision to sell our newspapers after 47 years of Ewing ownership was not taken lightly," Ewing said in a statement. "I am confident GateHouse has the desire and resources to continue what we have established, and expand Messenger Post Newspapers to even better serve Rochester and our region."