Read all about it! Herald sold!

That's just great. We've joined the %*#%@^! "home team." Why? WHY??

You've probably all heard by now that the Fargo Forum, which owns our rivals at WDAZ, has agreed to buy the Herald.

Read more about the impending sale here. The McClatchy Co., which is buying the Herald's parent company Knight-Ridder, announced the sale in a press release here.

The Forum is also buying the Duluth News Tribune as well.

As a union man, I would've been happier if Yucaipa, the union-affilicated equity firm, had bought us but considering the alternatives, this is pretty good. The Forum has told us there are no layoffs planned and it will recognize the union. Since I like the Forum's Web site more than the crazy contraption Knight-Ridder forced on us, that's also a plus.

Update 9:10 a.m., 6/8/06: For a more complete story click here. Read about local reaction here. Media watchers react here. The Herald opinion page has an opinion here.

I'm definitely getting five minutes of fame here. Here's the online photo with me and night editor Jaime DeLage eating Dilly bars in the background while our boss Mike Jacobs attempts to explain the sale.

I was also quoted in the local react story -- which just happened to have my byline above it. Be assured that I wasn't sitting at my desk interviewing myself. The other author of that article, Paulette Tobin, did the interview. By phone. From across the room.

By the way, nice quote, eh? I sounded like a regular pompous ass. So proud.

Update 3:05 p.m., 6/8/06: Bill Marcil, the Forum owner, came to talk to us Herald employees today and said all the things we wanted to hear. Like "more resources" to bring us back to where we were before. Or that the Forum is a pretty "decentralized" company, which means we won't be an appendage of the parent newspaper. I'm way too cynical so I still can't believe it until I see it.

Of course, what Marcil said sounds way better than what Dean Singleton told the crew at our old sister paper the St. Paul Pioneer Press, which was something that sounded suspiciously like "doing more with the same resources."