MARSHALL — Several Minnesota newspapers — including papers in area communities like Cottonwood, Granite Falls and Redwood Falls — will be starting the new year under new ownership.

Earlier this month, CherryRoad Media announced it had agreed to purchase a total of seven newspapers from Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain. The list includes the Tri-County News in Cottonwood, the Granite Falls Advocate-Tribune, the Montevideo American-News, the Redwood Falls Gazette, the Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch, the St. James Plaindealer and the Crookston Daily Times. The purchase of all the newspapers will be effective Jan. 1.

“We’re really excited to be working with the high quality of staff already in place in these communities,” said CherryRoad Media CEO Jeremy Gulban in a press release that was printed in area newspapers. “We want to bring together our tech skills and tools and put together great online news-sources and print newspapers for subscribers.”

In an interview with the Montevideo American-News, Gulban said CherryRoad wanted to get back to having local editors control the content of the purchased newspapers. One of his first priorities will also be to launch new websites for the papers that better highlight local news.

CherryRoad Media is a subsidiary of a New Jersey-based technology company. CherryRoad bought its first newspaper, the Cook County, Minn., News-Herald, in 2020. Since then, the company has started one newspaper — the Rainy Lake Gazette in International Falls — and bought other Gannett-owned newspapers in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa and Colorado.

In the press release, Gulban said CherryRoad Media was willing to invest in community newspapers because there was room for both print and digital coverage in local news.

“I don’t think a newspaper is a newspaper unless we print a newspaper,” Gulban said. “There are some who want a printed paper to hold in their hands, there are others who get their news online. We want to cut through the clutter and serve all with a better product.”

“We look forward to supporting the communities our papers serve in every way we can,” Gulban said. “There are many exciting initiatives on the horizon with this new endeavor, with much more to look forward to in the months ahead. Please continue to support your local newspapers and journalists. They serve to remind of us of where we have been, as well as where we are headed.”