Maine news on state probation

By TED COHEN/PATCH.COM

A struggling Maine journalism corporation now listed as "not in good standing" by the secretary of state

failed in its bid to buy the state's largest paper and its sister publications.

The group has missed a corporate-filing deadline with the state, Patch.com has learned.

• In the meantime, the National Trust for Local News, which has financial connections with George Soros, the hedge-fund tycoon, claims it has agreed to buy five of Maine’s six daily papers and 17 of its weeklies.
• The trust has entered into a shrouded agreement to buy the newspapers of Masthead Maine, including the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram.

The national nonprofit's plans to take over ownership of Maine’s leading newspapers dashes the hopes of a competing group that was hoping to do so first.

The money from the contributors to the so-called Maine Journalism Foundation will allegedly be used to help finance the supposed sale although they'll have little-to-no say in the paper's management.

“This is the most independent route I think I could have taken that maintains both the independence of the press and continuity for staff and readers,” outgoing owner Reade Brower said of the sale. “I believe they want to continue to run this as a sustainable business, which I like, and I don’t believe they will try and drain resources, which I like.”

Besides the Press Herald, the deal includes the Sun Journal in Lewiston, the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the Morning Sentinel in Waterville, the Times Record in Brunswick and 17 weekly papers in southern and western Maine.

A Maine group that had formed as a nonprofit - and included as its officers Bill Nemitz, a former newspaper columnist

- hoped to buy the Press Herald but the Maine Journalism Foundation failed to raise the money it needed.

The Maine foundation, meanwhile, is now listed as "not in good standing" with the Maine secretary of state.

"The entity failed to file the 2023 annual report by the June 1st deadline," Tammy J. Mower, supervisor of the corporations division for the secretary of state, told Patch.com. "They have until August 17th to file the annual report with a penalty or they will be administratively dissolved."

As the transition from the current newspaper's owner to the national news trust continues, the future of executive editor Steve Greenlee

remains in limbo although CEO Lisa DeSisto's job is said to be safe.

Missing from the sale were six weeklies stretching along Maine’s northern coast, according to the Bangor Daily News.

Those not included are The Ellsworth American, The Mount Desert Islander in Bar Harbor, The Courier-Gazette in Rockland, The Republican Journal in Belfast, The Camden Herald and The Free Press in Camden, said Chris Crockett, publisher of those newspapers.

Crockett said he was not given an explanation about why his group of papers was not included in the sale to the trust.

The trust's donors include the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which is the non-controlling owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer. That organization provided more than $500,000 to the trust, according to tax filing data collected by ProPublica.

The institute, in turn, received donations earmarked for the trust from groups such as George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society, according to MainePublic.org.

The state's largest paper was originally owned by Guy P. Gannett, whose granddaughter, Madeleine Corson,

is one of the founding officers and honorary chairwoman of the Maine Journalism Foundation.

Corson was unavailable for comment.