Employees purchase Saskatchewan paper to keep it from closing

A group of employees at a Saskatchewan daily newspaper has reached a deal to purchase the outlet and run it as an independent publication, just over a week after a sister daily in the province closed.

Star News Publishing says it has sold the Prince Albert Daily Herald to a group of employees led by publisher Donna Pfeil.

“It’s an employee buyout. We’re all invested in keeping the paper going. We all love our jobs and are really passionate about them,” Pfeil said in an interview on Saturday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Star News says the transaction will close “in the very near term.”

Star News Publishing President Roger Holmes said that the sale is good for both the city of Prince Albert and the media industry.

Employees say they’re pleased to return the paper to its roots as an independent, locally owned and operated news outlet.

“We know there’s a lot of work in front of us. We think we can pull it off though,” said Peter Lozinski, the paper’s managing editor.

Earlier this month, the Moose Jaw Times-Herald, which was also owned by Star News Publishing, ceased operations after being in business since the 1800s.

Holmes said at the time that the paper couldn’t withstand all the challenges facing small-town newspapers, including declining readership and increased costs.

Star acquired the Moose Jaw and Prince Albert papers from Montreal-based Transcontinental in 2016 as part of a deal that included close to a dozen other papers, commercial printing equipment and a book business.