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Mirror Group buys Derry Journal

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

By Andrew Bushe

DUBLIN – For the first time a foreign company has bought into the country’s provincial newspaper market, with the Daily Mirror Group paying _18.25 million in cash for the Derry Journal, which includes the Donegal People’s Press and the Donegal Democrat.

The Mirror Group’s chief executive, David Montgomery, who is close to the Ulster Unionist Party and is now boss of two of the most influential newspapers on either side of the political divide in Northern Ireland, said the decision was purely a commercial one.

In 1996, the Mirror bought Century Newspapers, publishers of the traditionally Unionist News Letter.

The twice-weekly Derry Journal, with a circulation of 26,000 on Tuesday and 27,000 on Friday, is the most influential Nationalist newspaper apart from the daily Irish News.

Montgomery said they also owned regional newspapers in Birmingham and Coventry and planned to expand in the market.

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He said the Derry Journal had been founded in 1772 and has a tradition of nationalist politics that “we would intend to uphold and protect fiercely, just as we uphold and protect the politics of the News Letter. These traditions are invested in the local editors and they will be maintained by them,” he said.

The McCarroll family, who have owned the Derry Journal since the 1920s, have been known to be interested in selling for some time, but they had been anxious about editorial freedom and job security.

The Ballyshannon-based Donegal Democrat has a circulation of 18,000 and the Donegal People’s Press sells 4,000 a week. The group also produces a free newspaper, Journal Extra, which has a weekly circulation of 31,250.

Both the Independent and Examiner Groups have purchased provincial newspapers titles.

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