Gannett buys Brown County Publishing, News-Chronicle By ROBERT IMRIE Associated Press Writer GREEN BAY, Wis. - Frank Wood, the maverick publisher of The Green Bay News-Chronicle who for more than two decades called Gannett Co. his hated adversary, gave up the fight Friday and sold his daily newspaper and 33 other publications to the nation's largest newspaper group. The sale shocked News-Chronicle Editor Tom Brooker and most of the publishing company's 170 employees, Brooker said. "Obviously, I was stunned because it was Gannett. I did not even have any inkling about this until Wednesday night," he said. Gannett owns the city's other daily newspaper, the much larger Green Bay Press-Gazette. The papers have offices barely two blocks apart, but they are a world apart in terms of culture _ Gannett has owned the Press-Gazette since 1980, and Wood and his family have operated the News-Chronicle since 1976. Wood had repeatedly complained that Gannett was trying to drive him out of town, and in 1989 the News-Chronicle published a 10-part series about its battle with the Press-Gazette. Wood said Friday it was finally time to sell his Brown County Publishing Co., even if the buyer was his longtime nemesis. "After exploring every possible, conceivable option, it made the most sense," Wood said. "When you are 76 years old, you are in the fourth quarter, and I found myself running out of money and running out of time. I have been looking at the different options for a long time." The sale means his newspaper keeps publishing for now and no one is out of a job, Wood said. Lynette Mack, a spokeswoman for Gannett's Wisconsin newspapers, said the company plans no immediate changes as it becomes familiar with its newly acquired publications. "We're very committed to maintaining the independent voice that Frank Wood and these newspapers have done so well in establishing," she said. "Whatever issues were in the past we don't want to comment on except to say they've obviously been resolved." The News-Chronicle was launched in November 1972 as the Green Bay Daily News, a newspaper started by strikers at the Press-Gazette during some labor strife. Wood bought it four years later, merged it with his metro shopper, the Brown County Chronicle, and changed the name to the News-Chronicle. Wood believed Green Bay readers and advertisers deserved two newspapers so they had some choices. He said the newspaper had been profitable only two of the years he has owned it, so he subsidized it with his own money, revenue from his other ventures and mortgaging other assets. But given his age, Wood said he did not want to leave his estate with such a tangled set of business affairs. "I have always been a pragmatist," he said. "(Selling) was the common sense thing to do." Wood said the sale to Gannett was worth "more than several million dollars," but he and Gannett did not disclose the exact price. Besides the daily newspaper, Gannett acquired seven weekly newspapers in northeastern Wisconsin, including the three-times weekly Door County Advocate in Sturgeon Bay, 13 shoppers and 12 specialty publications, Wood said. Wood retained his commercial printing operations in Denmark and Brookfield and two automobile sales magazines. With the News-Chronicle, Gannett now owns 11 daily newspapers in Wisconsin and more than 100 nationwide, including USA Today. The Virginia-based company reported $6.7 billion in operating revenue last year. Brooker said it's now business as usual at the News-Chronicle, which has a circulation of about 7,200 on weekdays and 10,000 on Sundays. "We are going to have to find a way to make the paper profitable or we are going to be looking at something else," he said. William Thorn, a journalism professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, said Gannett's purchase of the News-Chronicle saddened him but was not unexpected. "They want no competition," he said. Thorn predicted at worst, the News-Chronicle will eventually disappear, or at best would become some kind of insert in the Press-Gazette, which has a circulation of about 56,000 daily and 83,000 on Sundays. "I think every community that has lost a newspaper has had a softening of public affairs reporting," he said. Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt said the News-Chronicle has served the community well and called Wood's fight against Gannett a David versus Goliath story. "Change is inevitable, and that is an industry going through a lot of changes," he said. "I know we are fortunate for a city of our size to have two good newspapers." Wood and Ellen Leifeld, a vice president in Gannett's Midwest Newspaper Group and president and publisher of The Post-Crescent in Appleton, told News-Chronicle employees of the sale Friday morning. Brooker said many reacted in disbelief that Gannett was the buyer. "There was just this huge gasp and then there was just this, 'Nooooooo,'" he said. "Anybody who has known Frank couldn't help but get a little bit choked up in there. ... The employees gave him a standing ovation." Wood's last chore for his beloved News-Chronicle was to write a farewell column for Sunday's paper. He ended the column with a passage from the Bible: "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith."