New Jersey tech company buys Newton Kansan

The Newton Kansan is under new ownership.
CherryRoad Media Inc., the publication arm of a larger New Jersey Internet technology company, picked up the Kansan as part of a four-state, 20-newspaper deal with the Kansan’s owner, Gannett Co. Inc. The deal gives the company new newspapers across Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska. Those papers include the Hays Daily News, The Garden City Telegram, The Dodge City Daily Globe and The Leavenworth Times.
As part of the deal, CherryRoad picked up The Newton Kansan, McPherson Sentinel and The Butler County Times-Gazette.
CherryRoad Media is new on the newspaper scene and began buying publications at the end of 2020, during the pandemic. It had properties in Minnesota, Arkansas and Alabama before the recent purchase. The IT wing of the company has operated since 1983 and provides “complex technical solutions and system integration services to large enterprise customers, particularly state and local government entities,” according to the company press release.
In the release about the purchase, Jeremy Gulban, CEO of CherryRoad Media and CherryRoad Technologies, said the company was excited to work with a talented group of people and serving the communities where the newspapers were located.
“I want to thank the team at Gannett for working with us to find a good home for these important community institutions,” he said.
According to a feature on Gulban, published Sept. 9 by the Arkansas Press Association, the company, pre-purchase, employed 450 total employees, including around 20 who work in newspapers.
Gulban stated that after getting involved with newspapers, he gained a larger respect for the print medium.
“Once I got into the business, I realized this is something that’s always interested me,” he said. “I’ve been a news junkie without really realizing it.”
This isn’t the first go-around of new ownership for the Kansan. In 2007, Gatehouse acquired it from the Morris Company. Gatehouse continued to expand in Kansas, buying the Harris Group in 2016, including the Hutchinson News and Salina Journal, which it still owns today.
In 2017, the company cut the Kansan from five to three days of publication a week.
In 2019, the name of the company became Gannett after the merger of Gatehouse Media and Gannett. Technically, Gatehouse bought Gannett but took the name for marketing purposes.