Owner(s) Local Media Group Editor David Still II | Publisher Robert F. Sennott, Jr. Founded 1830 | |
The Barnstable Patriot is a weekly newspaper published in and for the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, United States. Although it bills itself as "an independent voice since 1830", The Patriot has been owned, since 2005, by Local Media Group.
News Corp. acquired The Patriot when it bought Dow Jones & Company (Ottaway's parent) for US$5 billion in late 2007. Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., reportedly told investors before the deal that he would be "selling the local newspapers fairly quickly" after the Dow Jones purchase.
On September 4, 2013, News Corp announced that it would sell the Dow Jones Local Media Group to Newcastle Investment Corp.—an affiliate of Fortress Investment Group, for $87 million. The newspapers will be operated by GateHouse Media, a newspaper group owned by Fortress. News Corp. CEO and former Wall Street Journal editor Robert James Thomson indicated that the newspapers were "not strategically consistent with the emerging portfolio" of the company. GateHouse in turn filed prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 27, 2013, to restructure its debt obligations in order to accommodate the acquisition.
Sisters and competitors
Although Ottaway also owns The Patriot's main competitor, the daily Cape Cod Times, the weekly newspaper's newsroom is run independently of its rival. Robert F. Sennott Jr., who formerly owned the newspaper, was retained by Ottaway as publisher of The Patriot. Ottaway also owns the weekly The Inquirer and Mirror of Nantucket and daily The Standard-Times of New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Community Newspaper Company publishes a competitor weekly newspaper, The Register, in Barnstable.