Media company E.W Scripps has acquired Columbia-based media startup Newsy for $35 million according to this press release.
The five-year-old company has a relationship with the MU School of Journalism and many MU students work there as part of coursework. Newsy is best known for its short online videos that aggregate news content from multiple sources. The videos have appeared on The Huffington Post and Mashable.
E.W. Scripps is best known for its network of 19 local television stations and daily newspapers in 13 US markets. The company has recently been pivoting from its old media roots in a spate of acquisitions. In an article today, Tech Crunch commented on the interesting evolution of the company:
in 2007, in a moment of digital chicken that it lost, it spun off its Scripps Interactive division (full of hundreds of millions of dollars in acquired and homegrown assets) and remained E.W. Scripps the publishing company. Since then, it has quietly been building that digital effort back up, with more cautious footing.
Public radio fans might remember that Scripps acquired former NPR reporter Andrea Seabrook's political podcast, Decode DC in November.
Media insider Jim Romenesko reported today that Scripps shed at least 19 positions today, most of them at its Memphis newspaper, The Commercial Appeal.
Scripps notes in its press release that founder Jim Spencer and Newsy's 35 full-time employees will remain in Columbia. Newsy released the below promotional video timed with the announcement today: