Media: GateHouse gobbles up an Eagle

More sad news for the state of Journalism in West-Central Illinois:

Eagle Publications of Western Illinois, Inc. announced today it has agreed to sell the Macomb Eagle and related publications to GateHouse Media. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is scheduled to be completed May 31.

Eagle Publications of Western Illinois, Inc. was owned and operated by Tom and Eunice Hutson, Macomb.

Included in the sale, in addition to the Macomb Eagle, were The Abingdon Argus-Sentinel, Roseville Independent, Augusta Eagle-Scribe, The McDonough County This Week and the Daily Brief.

I stand ready to give advice started up online citizen jounalism projects in any and all these communities. The people in these communities WILL need to do so, because GateHouse will bleed these publications dry, drive off any employee who’s worth a damn, then eventually collapse into a black hole of suckage.