Two for-profit newspapers in Alaska will soon become nonprofit entities.
The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and its sister newspaper, the Kodiak Daily Mirror, will be sold to the Fairbanks-based nonprofit Helen E. Snedden Foundation, the News-Miner announced Monday.
The sale is still pending, and expected to close in early 2016. The foundation has not disclosed a sale price.
As part of the sale, the newspapers will switch their business models to become nonprofit-owned limited-liability companies. News-Miner Publisher Marti Buscaglia said no immediate changes are planned for the newsroom.
"This means getting away from that mentality in the newspaper industry that is solely bottom-line focused," she said.
News-Miner employees heard about the sale during an announcement Monday afternoon.
"The employees were delighted, but I'm sure there's going to be plenty of (challenges)," Buscaglia said. The transition to nonprofit means the newspaper will no longer be able to endorse candidates, will have to ensure more balanced editorials and comply with other IRS regulations, she said.
The Snedden Foundation aims to "enhance the quality of life in Alaska," said Virginia Farmier, the foundation's sole trustee, in a statement.
"By owning the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the foundation will further that mission," she said, "allowing the newspapers to continue to communicate, educate and inform the citizens of these communities with excellent local news coverage."
With the sale, ownership of the News-Miner will come full circle.
The Snedden Foundation was created by the late wife of the News-Miner's former publisher, Charles W. Snedden. The Sneddens owned the newspaper from 1950 to 1992.
William Dean Singleton has owned the paper since 1992, when his family and the family of his business partner Richard Scudder purchased it from the Snedden family.
Both papers will work closely with the C.W. Snedden Chair in Journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to educate journalism students and the community. Helen Snedden endowed that chair for her husband in 2003.
Originally called the Fairbanks News, the Daily News-Miner was founded in 1903.
Correction: This story originally stated that the newspapers would become nonprofits. They will actually become nonprofit-owned limited-liability companies.