• Boston Globe, Tuesday, May 16, 2006 10:45 AM

A $400 million deal to buy dozens of newspapers around Boston is evidence that the suburbs are still regarded by investors as good turf for the suffering print industry, the Boston Globe reports. GateHouse Media, part of a New York-based hedge fund and venture capital firm, will buy a total of 124 newspapers, most of them small but in affluent, densely populated areas. And at a time when readers--and Wall Street--are running away from big newspapers, the deal makes sense, says Peter Conti, vice president of research firm Borrell Associates: big newspapers trying to serve a broad audience face greater threats to their traditional readership base from the Internet and television, while suburban papers focused on town meetings, fund-raisers, and soccer scores don't have to worry much about their product being duplicated elsewhere.

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