WASHINGTON — After a tense and closely monitored period on the market, the Washington City Paper finally has a buyer.
Mark Ein, a businessman and investor from the D.C. area, will be the alternative weekly’s first local owner in 35 years. Ein reached an agreement to buy the newspaper from its current owner, Nashville-based SouthComm Inc.
“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of high-quality journalism — particularly today,” Ein said in a news release.
News of the sale reached City Paper staff in the midst of their annual holiday party, chief editor Alexa Mills wrote in an article announcing the sale.
As the new owner, Ein is putting together a team of City Paper alumni to “re-energize” the paper, and it includes an impressive cast: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Kate Boo — each of whom has won a National Book Award and a MacArthur Genius Grant — as well as CNN’s Jake Tapper. The group will provide editorial and other support, according to the release.
The paper has been on sale since Oct. 13, and its fate seemed uncertain during a fraught time for local and print journalism. Just a few days before the sale was announced, City Paper employees were told their salaries would be slashed by 40 percent, The Washingtonian reported. It’s unclear if the salary cuts will still happen.
Armstrong Williams, a conservative columnist and confidant of U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, was interested in buying the paper, The Hill reported. His interest in the “typically anti-establishment” paper raised eyebrows nationwide.
The local newspaper’s uncertain fate was closely watched, especially after CEO Joe Ricketts’ rapid shuttering of DCist and other news networks just a week after their editorial staff voted to unionize.
Alexa Mills will continue serving as the City Paper’s chief editor.
“It speaks volumes about City Paper that so many extraordinary journalists and leaders from across the Washington landscape have come together so quickly to support the City Paper’s future success,” Ein said in the release.
