Another bidder emerges for West Virginia newspaper

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – An auction to sell West Virginia’s largest newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail, is scheduled for Thursday.

The Gazette-Mail reports bankruptcy court filings show a second company, HD Media of Huntington, West Virginia, has placed a bid.

A subsidiary of Wheeling-based Ogden Newspapers was the highest bidder Jan. 30, when Charleston Newspapers, owner of the Gazette-Mail, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and issued a 60-day layoff notice to employees.

The amount of HD Media’s bid wasn’t disclosed. But to push the sale to an auction, HD Media had to bid $500,000 more than Ogden’s $10.911 million by the Tuesday deadline under the bankruptcy court’s order.

Notice of the leading bidder will be issued at the conclusion of the auction.

The Gazette-Mail’s Eric Eyre won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting of the state’s drug crisis.

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Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, http://wvgazettemail.com.