'Chicago Sun-Times' Sold For $1

Coy, cagy media folks often resort to vagueness when they don’t want to talk about money, e.g., “six figures,” “seven figures” and so on. However, the system breaks down with deals for distressed media properties, as “one figure” doesn’t really leave much room for the imagination. Still, that is the price range for the recent sale of Chicago Sun-Times by publisher Wrapports, LLC. It was acquired by an investment group led by Chicago alderman Edwin Eisendrath for the grand sum of $1. (The newsstand price for a single copy of the newspaper.) That's according to a report published by the newspaper, citing an unnamed source familiar with the deal.

The deal also includes the Chicago Reader and the weekly’s syndicated “Straight Dope” column. Both are being absorbed into Answers Media, a multimedia production company simultaneously acquired by Eisendrath. In fairness, that’s not the only financial commitment made by the buyers. As in a number of similar deals in recent years, the investment group, which includes several labor unions, agreed to assume an unspecified amount of debt. It also agreed to pony up $11.2 million in operating funds to demonstrate their intention to keep the newspaper a going concern. The symbolic price tag is reminiscent of a number of other deals over the last decade.