HD Media successful bidder for bankrupt West Virginia paper

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The owner of The Herald-Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia, is the successful bidder to buy the bankrupt Charleston Gazette-Mail after another media group dropped out.

News outlets report HD Media made the lone bid of $11.4 million at an auction Thursday. Representatives of Wheeling-based Ogden Newspapers, which earlier bid $10.9 million, didn’t attend the auction.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge is expected to rule on the sale Friday.

In January, the Gazette-Mail filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and issued a 60-day layoff notice to employees. It won a Pulitzer Prize last year for Eric Eyre’s investigative reporting of the state’s opioid drug crisis.

Huntington-based HD Media also owns The Wayne County News, the Logan Banner, Williamson Daily News, the Coal Valley News and The Pineville Independent Herald.