Forum Communications Co. has acquired the Grand Forks Herald, a North Dakota rival, and the Duluth News Tribune in Minnesota, its president said Wednesday.

The Fargo company, which owns the Forum newspaper and other papers in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin, announced it bought the former Knight Ridder papers from the McClatchy Co. of Sacramento, Calif.

The Grand Forks and Duluth papers "are each great newspapers, with a strong heritage of committed journalism," William C. Marcil, president and chief executive officer of Forum Communications, said in a statement. "They will fit well within our diverse group of integrated media properties."

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Marcil could not immediately be reached for comment. Executives at the company did not immediately return telephone messages for comment.

The Forum and the Herald are North Dakota's two largest newspapers. The Forum's daily circulation is 51,000, while the Herald's daily circulation is 31,000.

Mike Jacobs, the Herald's publisher and editor, called Forum Communications "a great newspaper company" and said he believed the new ownership would be "very, very interesting and quite a lot of fun."

"Part of me says it would have been better if we had had a separate ownership for these two newspapers," Jacobs said. "You've got to think that having separate business interests … would have sharpened the competition. But there can be competition within companies."

Marti Buscaglia, publisher of the Duluth News Tribune, said she believed Forum Communications was "the best match for our company and our employees."

"It feels very local, and I think that's good for the community," Buscaglia said.

Marcil met with the Duluth newspaper's employees Wednesday. Sam Cook, a News Tribune outdoors reporter and columnist, said Marcil spoke about the importance of a good newspaper.

"We were eager to hear that," Cook said. "There was no talk about any big changes in management." Buscaglia said she had been invited to stay on as publisher and that she intended to accept the offer.

The Grand Forks Herald traces its Knight Ridder roots back to 1929. Ridder Publications Inc. bought the News Tribune in 1936.

Forum Communications owns 29 daily and weekly newspapers in four states, including the Jamestown Sun and the Dickinson Press in North Dakota, as well as television stations in Grand Forks and Fargo, a radio station, a commercial printing businesses in North Dakota and Minnesota, and an Internet service provider.

The News Tribune and the Herald will be the second- and third-largest papers owned by Forum Communications, Marcil's statement said.

The sale includes a number of smaller businesses affiliated with the Herald and the News Tribune, including Agweek, a Herald agribusiness publication, and newspapers in Superior, Wis., Two Harbors, Minn., and Cloquet, Minn.

McClatchy recently bought Knight Ridder Inc., the former owner of the Grand Forks and Duluth newspapers. The company is keeping 20 Knight Ridder papers and selling the remaining 12. Grand Forks and Duluth were among the 12.

McClatchy owns the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, and owns newspapers in California, North and South Carolina, Washington and Alaska.

(Associated Press writer Josh Freed contributed to this story from Minneapolis.)