Freedom Communications, which filed for bankruptcy in September, announced plans on Monday to close a newspaper in Arizona, the latest victim of the crisis gripping the US newspaper industry.
The East Valley Tribune, which employs some 140 people and is based in the town of Mesa, will put out its final edition on December 31, Freedom said, and its website will also be shut down.
The East Valley Tribune, which published three days a week and circulated some 100,000 free copies, is the second newspaper in Arizona to be shuttered this year.
The Gannett-owned Tucson Citizen closed in May.
Freedom, which owns the Orange County Register, the third-largest daily in California, and 30 other newspapers, filed for bankruptcy on September 1 and had been seeking a buyer for the East Valley Tribune.
"Unfortunately, we have yet to identify a suitable partner to purchase the East Valley Tribune," Freedom chief executive Burl Osborne said in a statement.
"As a result, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to wind down these operations," he said. "This is the best alternative for our company financially given the continued recession and many challenges facing our industry."
Like other newspaper publishers in the United States, Freedom has been grappling with a slide in advertising revenue, declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.
Two major newspapers folded earlier this year -- the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in Seattle, Washington, which stopped publishing a print edition to go online only.
The Christian Science Monitor also went Web-only this year after 100 years in print.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEWS
Arizona newspaper to close in December
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