Another independent paper, the 153-year-old Virginian-Pilot, has been sold as its owners say they cannot manage digital transition and the financial challenges of declining advertising without the scale of a large chain.

The buyer, for $34 million, is Tronc, whose holdings include the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun and the nearby Daily Press of Newport News. The change in ownership, announced this morning, is effective immediately.

Journalists at Tronc’s eight local newsrooms learned the day before Valentine’s that the company is launching big plans to get its editors and reporters pivoting to digital.

In a three-page, all-hands memo, Tronc president Tim Knight shared a vision of that company’s future and a host of coming changes.

Tronc Inc. experienced a rare decline in unique visitors in the second quarter of this year, off 9 percent compared to the same period in 2016.

Even as revenues disappoint, and Facebook and Google spirit away advertising share, legacy media companies like Tronc almost always show some gain in uniques and pageviews.

When it comes to the sale of the Chicago Sun-Times, one craves the kind of decisiveness demonstrated by the early-morning tweets of President Trump.

Who knows, maybe he'd announce a sale to his favorite media vehicle, "Fox & Friends." We are, after all, in rather uncharted territory on many fronts with the president.

While President Trump feuds with his Attorney General over a travel ban and the Russia investigation, he's likely unaware of a less fractious Justice Department matter: approving a sale of the Chicago Sun-Times.

The latest deadline for bids to buy the financially pressed tabloid passed Monday. There are at least two apparent new bids in addition to a previous one from its longtime rival Chicago Tribune, according to a source familiar with the process.

The Justice Department has extended until Monday the period for possible bids for the Chicago Sun-Times amid what appears to be interest by one or more parties.

In a note to staff early Wednesday, Publisher-Editor Jim Kirk updated his staff in a note that implied that there's been some interest displayed since the government essentially ordered the paper to run an ad soliciting bids.

The long-proud Chicago Sun-Times takes the newspaper industry's stunning decline to a frustrating low this morning: It runs an ad for its own sale.

Wrapped around the front page is a letter to readers from publisher-editor Jim Kirk that it's looking for new ownership to keep "the Sun-Times publishing as an independent news source for Chicago."

Seeking to make virtue out of totally predictable and painful necessity, the parent of The Chicago Tribune is seeking to buy its longtime tabloid rival, The Chicago Sun-Times.

The two papers already have a joint printing and distribution agreement and will now enter into a merger discussion that would theoretically maintain them as separate entities.

What been tagged the "rat's nest of corporate intrigue" at Tronc. Inc., publisher of The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, got a bit larger and rattier Thursday as the company alleged that a Los Angeles billionaire has consistently violated its rules by buying more stock.

Seven journalists were laid off from the San Diego Union-Tribune on Tuesday, editor and publisher Jeff Light said in a memo to staffers.

"I feel badly about these difficult decisions," Light said. "Everyone we are saying goodbye to is a dedicated journalist and a valued colleague. Some have spent decades at the U-T."

"In an organization of our size, it is a small number," he continued. "But that does not lessen the sense of loss everyone in our newsroom will feel today."