News Corp Sells Local Newspapers to Fortress Investment

News Corp, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, sold a collection of local newspapers such as Oregon’s Ashland Daily Tidings and Massachusetts’ Cape Cod Times to private-equity manager Fortress Investment Group.

Financial terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed. The Dow Jones Local Media Group operates 33 publications, including eight daily newspapers and 15 weeklies. News Corp, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, is narrowing its focus to larger publications such as the Journal, the New York Post and the UK’s Times. The sale reduces the Dow Jones unit to the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron’s, SmartMoney.com and the conferences business and news site AllThingsD, whose contract with the company ends this year.