The Fayetteville Observer is sold to GateHouse Media

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Fayetteville Publishing Co. has sold The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer and its other businesses to GateHouse Media, LLC.

The sale ends 93 years of local ownership by the family of the late Ashton Wilson Lilly.

Fayetteville Publishing Co. was represented by Gary Greene, managing director of Cribb, Greene & Cope, a newspaper brokerage, appraisal and consulting firm with offices in Virginia, Montana and Missouri.

The Observer, which is marking its 200th anniversary this year as North Carolina's oldest newspaper, has been the largest independently owned newspaper in North Carolina and one of the largest remaining in the South through an era of consolidation in the newspaper business.

Charles Broadwell, the company's president and publisher and a fourth-generation member of the ownership family, announced the news, saying: "Our family owners and board members went through extensive discussions during the past year before making the difficult decision to sell the newspaper and accept GateHouse's offer."

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