The sale would include the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal, the Morning Sentinel, and MaineToday.com, a website that serves as a news and information portal for the state of Maine.

The sale would also include the Coastal Journal, with its weekly circulation of nearly 20,000 in the greater Bath/Brunswick area, Sagadahoc, Lincoln and Knox Counties, as well as its monthly lifestyle publication, Midcoast Life, and its quarterly publication, the Midcoast Health Journal.

Daily newspapers have suffered losses in revenue across the country.  Seattle Times CEO and Publisher Frank Blethen acknowledged that the company faced an uncertain business climate.  “We wish that our stewardship of these papers, which we have been proud to have had for the last ten years, could continue indefinitely,” he said.  “The decision to explore a sale was painful.  But a sale may be the best opportunity for the long-term survival of our newspapers in Washington and in Maine.”

Chuck Cochrane, CEO and Publisher of Blethen Maine, said he does not anticipate this decision to require changes in policy or operation of the papers affected while the sale is being explored.  The Coastal Journal has ten employees, and no changes to its operations are being considered.

Dirks, Van Essen and Murray of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the nation’s leading newspaper merger and acquisition firm, has been engaged as a broker to assist with the sale.  Blethen says the goal is to have a sale completed by year’s end.