This just in: Murdoch buys The Brooklyn Paper!

By on March 10, 2009 2:31 pm in Downtown Brooklyn, DUMBO, News

Parody illustration
Rupert Murdoch has purchased the 31-year-old Brooklyn Paper, and will now include it in its Community Newspaper Group, a source has confirmed to BHB.

The deal became official last Friday, sources say, but the two organizations are still discussing how the two papers will coexist in neighborhoods in which they both have reporters. Those decisions could take several months, a source said.

The Brooklyn Paper’s publisher, Celia Weintrob, told the Observer that an official announcement would be published on Friday. 

Murdoch bought the Courier-Life chain in 2006 as part of a buying spree of 28 papers covering Queens and Brooklyn, and recently relocated the headquarters to MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn.

We will, of course, stay on top of this developing story.

Update (3:50 pm): To clarify, the Brooklyn Paper will not be owned by the New York Post directly, nor will it share any editorial content, at least not according to preliminary discussions, explained the source. Rather, the paper will be owned by CNG, which is owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation.

How do you think the future of Brooklyn’s news coverage will play out? What changes would you want to see come of the now-merged Courier and Brooklyn Paper newspapers?

(Above parody illustration by Homer Fink)

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  • Matt

    Well.. there goes the fun little paper I enjoyed reading every Sat.

  • Publius

    The Brooklyn Paper is perfect fit for Murdoch’s other media properties like Fox New and the NY Post–it’s already biased, ideological, and wrongheaded. They won’t have to change a thing.

  • Homer Fink

    First, I’d like to wish our friends at the Brooklyn Paper the best of luck under their new ownership. I hope CNG will continue to support our friend Gersh Kuntzman and his staff in their endeavors.

    Ed Weintrob, B’Paper publisher, is someone I respect greatly for his passion for this borough and for the news business in general. Ed, along with Dan Rattiner of Dan’s Papers on Long Island were among the few “old media” folks who inspired the creation of this blog and for The Brooklyn Bugle.

  • Rocky

    Gersh of the unfortunate last name is an old Post hand … it’s obvious which way things were going. So how will some of the red-diaper babies that have columns in the paper co-exit with the same company that gives you Delonas, Dunleavy, O’Reilly and Bart Simpson?

  • yo

    that picture should come with a warning….

  • Mike

    Just this morning I was thinking, you know what the Brooklyn Paper needs? Racist homophobic cartoons, that’s what.

  • AEB

    Perhaps the recently sacked Liz Smith will find a new journalistic…perch.

    BH, for one Brooklyn nabe, is certainly a hotbed (ahem!) of sexual intrigue….

  • CJP

    If this story proves true Brooklyn Paper will be in the same corporate family as the Wall Street Journal!

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Rocky: “co-exit” certainly had to be a Freudian typo–or was it intentional?

  • Andrew Porter

    I guess Ed and Celia Weintrob are getting up in years and wanted to retire from the ratrace of weekly publishing. Years ago, I had TBP set the type for a couple of issues of my own news magazine, Science Fiction Chronicle, when they were still on Court Street. This was before Ed had married Celia. Murdoch’s far deeper pockets will likely help TBP in these trying times for print journalism, when we read about the death of The Rocky Mountain News and major troubles for everything from The San Francisco Chronicle to The New York Times.

    All politics is local, and perhaps the future of news reporting is local as well.

  • davoyager

    Sad day. I was so proud of our plucky local paper and it’s force of nature publishers and their homegrown wisdom. Maybe some young idealist will start the next true local paper in the years to come, but I will miss you, independent, Brooklyn flavored, Brooklyn Paper. Thank you for all the years,

  • Pierrepont

    Question: Why does everyone act like the Heights Press and Cobble Hill News does not exist? And its parent, the Eagle? It’s not like the Brooklyn Paper is the only option. If you don’t like the idea of Murdoch ownership, please take your business over to these other Brooklyn papers.

  • Chester

    The Eagle’s reporting is good at times but in general it seems out of touch with these times. They’d be best served by working with blogs like this one and Brownstoner to bring their business into this century.

  • Matt

    Just what brooklyn needs, more fake outrage!

    Oh my god, its all coming to an end.