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Waco, Texas – Berkshire Hathaway, investing company owned by billionaire Warren Buffett, is once again expanding its division of newspapers. This time it is buying the Waco Tribune–Herald, which is the second newspaper that it is buying in the state of Texas.

Warren Buffett has been making it a point to purchase small and medium-sized newspapers in areas where there is a strong sense of community. He obviously believes that this is a very lucrative opportunity, and is trying to capitalize on all of the problems taking place with print media right now.

“This is a very strong, growing market with terrific assets including Baylor University and the new research park,”  stated Terry Kroeger, who is the president of BH Media Group, as well as the CEO of the Omaha World-Herald Company.

The Waco Tribune-Herald is being sold by the company Robinson Media LLC. They are a family business in Waco who bought the company in 2009 from Cox Entertainment based out of Atlanta. There are currently 124 employees at this particular newspaper.

The official purchase date is planned to take place on July 31 of this year. The price of this purchase has not been disclosed at this point, so I cannot provide you any information in that area.

The current circulation for the daily newspaper of the Tribune-Herald is roughly 34,000 people. There Sunday circulation jumps up to 39,000 people. This is one of many newspapers that Warren Buffett already has a stake in as an investor.

He also believes that his company is going to buy a lot more newspapers over the next few years, but Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t plan on influencing the newspaper’s editorial policies whatsoever. So you can expect them to stay local community newspapers unaffected by Berkshire in any way, shape or form.

Berkshire Hathaway also announced that they were buying the Bryan-College Station Eagle in Texas as well earlier this month. They also already had a 3.2% stake in this newspaper before they decided to buy the entire thing.

There was a time where Buffett stated that the local newspaper was basically on its last legs. But he has come to obviously change his position regarding this topic and now he is a strong defender of the viability of these local newspapers.

He even believes they have an excellent future because they deliver community information that isn’t going to be available anywhere else. So there will always be a market for this type of local community news, and buying up newspapers like this is a very good investment from his perspective.

“In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper,” Mr. Buffett stated last month.

Terry Kroeger met with the staff of the Tribune-Herald recently just to ensure them that there aren’t any major changes being planned for the newspaper. He also wanted to ensure them that there aren’t any major layoffs coming as well since the employees are obviously going to be worried about that. His company plans on working with the managers in the Waco office to figure out what changes need to be made.

“The long-term fate of the Waco Trib is in better hands with professional newspaper people than it is left in the hands of the local community,” stated Clifton Robinson, chairman of Robinson Media.

The funny thing about this move on Warren Buffett’s part is that three short years ago, at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, he said that the newspaper business is on life support and the truth is that you’re only going to lose money if you are in this business. His actual quote is “for most newspapers in the United States, we would not buy them at any price.” That obviously isn’t the quote of a man interested in purchasing newspapers.

Or is it? In a stunning turn of events, the Oracle of Omaha decided to buy the Omaha World–Herald for $200 million. This is his hometown newspaper so this move possibly had some sentimental value to it. But that doesn’t explain his most recent purchase on May 17, 2012 where Berkshire Hathaway purchased 63 dailies and weeklies from the newspaper company Media General Inc. The total cost of this purchase was for $142 million in cash.

Would you like to know some of the newspapers that were purchased in this deal? The two biggest titles are the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Winston-Salem Journal. Buffett and company did not get their hands on Media General’s largest property, which is the Tampa Tribune. They are actually in discussions with different buyers who are interested in purchasing the Tribune at this time.

The current COO in charge of the Omaha World-Herald, Douglas Hiemstra, has been named president of the managing company of the 63 newspapers recently bought. The company is called World Media Enterprises, and it was created by BH Media Group, which is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

Warren Buffett has really changed his entire outlook regarding the future of the newspaper industry which was earlier commented on. His 2009 remarks were quite grim regarding newspapers and the entire industry in general.

In a current statement, Mr. Buffett says “in towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution then the local paper.” He also goes on to say that “the many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway.”

There are many journalists all across the United States of America right now who are wondering what it’s going to be like to have Warren Buffett as a boss. And why are they wondering this? Because Berkshire Hathaway, the legendary company that was founded by Warren Buffett, has literally bought up a lot of these little newspaper publications over a short period of time.

If history repeats itself, and I truly expect that it will, then the good people who work at The Buffalo News will be able to tell you it best. The Buffalo news is a newspaper that Warren Buffett first bought in the year 1977, and he has owned and operated it ever since.

So what is the verdict coming out of The Buffalo News offices: Warren Buffett is very much a hands-off boss as far as it goes in the newspaper business. He is an avid investor in journalism on the local level, and he also provides all of his employees in the journalism business with an excellent pension plan. The one thing you need to recognize is that The News, which is short for The Buffalo News, has unfortunately had to struggle through the downturn in the economy just like everybody else.

So don’t think that these newspapers are going to be a immune to economic adversity now that Warren buffet is at the helm. I’m sure that’s something that you’d certainly want to believe, but you’d be fooling yourself and trying to fool others if you shared your beliefs with those around you.

The one thing Mr. Buffett and all of his local newspaper colleagues need to prepare for is the new evolution in electronic publishing. It was just revealed recently that some of the largest magazines in circulation right now, including Sports Illustrated, Time magazine and People magazine, are now going to be offering online magazine subscriptions through Apple’s iTunes Store.

People are obviously turning more and more toward digital publications for their convenience and ease-of-use. It is obvious that Mr. Buffett likes to stick to things that he understands, and he may end up dating himself by buying into an industry that is completely changing right before his eyes.

Only time will obviously tell, but the newspaper industry certainly isn’t what it was all that long ago. So I hope Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway understand exactly what they’re getting into during the new and improved digital age.