Dow Jones May Sell Community Newspapers

Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said Tuesday it is considering the sale of the rest of its community newspaper group.

Dow Jones, which is on track to be acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. by the end of the year, had already sold six community newspapers last year and used the proceeds to buy the other half of the Factiva news database business that it didn't already own from Reuters Group PLC.

Murdoch had said previously that News Corp. was likely to sell the remaining community newspapers once the deal to acquire Dow Jones is complete.

Dow Jones's Ottaway newspaper group operates eight daily newspapers and 15 weeklies in seven states, including the Times Herald-Record, in Middletown, N.Y.; the Cape Cod Times in Hyannis, Mass.; and the Inquirer and Mirror on Nantucket, Mass.

Dow Jones shareholders are set to vote on the transaction on Dec. 13, but the outcome is already a foregone conclusion since a large enough number of the company's controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, have agreed to support the $5.6 billion deal.