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BH Media Group, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is currently buying the Tulsa World, we learned from Steve Jordan. The terms of the sale have not been disclosed as of yet.

The Lorton family has owned the Tulsa World newspaper “for four generations,” writes Jordan. It’s been nearly a month since Warren Buffett purchased his last daily newspaper. He bought the Greensboro News & Record nearing the end of January.

Robert E. Lorton Jr., Chairman of World Publishing Co. is quoted by Jordan as saying: “the newspaper business has become a difficult business model within a changing society and in particular for local family-owned newspapers. BH Media Group presents the best opportunity to continue a local paper that will serve this community, our friends and neighbors.”

Lorton is also quoted as saying that the sale “assures a secure future for a local Tulsa World newspaper.”

In a Boston Globe column that was released last week, newspaper business analyst Ken Doctor said to “expect an announcement of another Berkshire Hathaway newspaper acquisition – as soon as Monday.”

Now that Berkshire Hathaway has purchased the Tulsa World, Buffett and company currently own 27 daily newspapers and a grand total of 269 publications in all. Buffett purchased all but one of the Media General newspapers this past May. He believes in newspaper properties that “intensively cover their communities.” BH Media Group had to close down the Manassas News & Messenger this past December.

According to a report from Steve Jordan, BH Media Group, owned by Warren Buffett, has purchased the Greensboro News & Record from a company called Landmark Media Enterprises.

BH Media Group is a division of Berkshire Hathaway, and they recently purchased this newspaper from Landmark Media Enterprises for an undisclosed amount. Landmark is based in Norfork, Virginia. Warren Buffett has mentioned that he’s looking to acquire more midsized newspapers that have strong ties to their community.

We also learned that neither party disclosed the terms of the sale.

Employees of the News & Record did not learn about the sale until they were in a meeting this morning, the paper tells us.

This Greensboro-based newspaper has an average circulation on Sunday of 81,600 subscribers as of September of 2012. This figure is down 6% from the prior year. We learn this information from the Alliance for Audited Media. Their average Monday through Friday subscribership is down about 5% since September of 2011, and currently reaches 54,789 customers.

Warren Buffett tells us that he believes “newspapers that intensively cover their communities will have a good future.” Last May, Berkshire Hathaway purchased the majority of Media General’s newspapers. Buffett also says he’s considering buying more newspapers. One area of interest is the Allentown Pennsylvania Morning Call.

Last December, World Media, a division of Berkshire Hathaway, was forced to close the News & Messenger of Manassas, Virginia. It closed partly because of the competition of other publications and only reached a small piece of a much larger Metropolitan area.

Mister Warren Buffett is currently thinking about purchasing at least one of Tribune Company’s newspapers in the near future.

When on The Morning Call in Allentown Pennsylvania, Warren Buffett told them that “Allentown is our kind of place,” when he was responding to a question about whether or not Berkshire Hathaway would be interested in the daily newspaper with a circulation of 84,000.

The company Tribune is expected to sell off it’s newspaper portion of the business, which happens to include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, so that it can focus on its broadcasting business once it gets out of bankruptcy.

Some of the other potential companies interested in purchasing the Tribune’s newspaper business could be News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, Aaron Kushner from Freedom Communications and Doug Manchester of U-T San Diego.

“We haven’t heard anything from the Tribune Co. but if the phone rings, I’ll answer” said Buffett to the Morning Call.

Buffett has a fickle relationship with the newspaper industry, and during 2009 he mentioned to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that he wouldn’t buy the majority of newspapers in the United States of America “at any price.”

But his affections for the newspaper business have changed, and he is interested in purchasing newspapers in the small to medium-sized markets. As a matter of fact, he’s been on a buying spree as of late, in which he has acquired newspaper stakes in companies like Lee Enterprises, as well as the majority of the newspapers from Media General.

Contrary to popular belief, Warren Buffett isn’t going to let one troubled newspaper diminish his view of buying what many experts in the media consider the fossils of the news business. Buffett actually plans to buy more newspapers, even though he recently told us that he’s going to shut down one of the newspapers that he bought by the end of this year.

“I hope we have a lot more,” said Warren Buffett when discussing his newspaper portfolio at a party attended Monday night with his longtime friend Carol Loomis, who is a writer for Fortune and recently published “Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966 – 2012.”

Warren Buffett went on a spending spree and bought newspapers this year, where he picked up roughly 60 from conglomerate Media General, and also picked up a small stake in the newspaper company Lee Enterprises, which is a chain of small daily newspapers based out of Iowa. During this time, he stressed to investors and the world that small news papers are going to have a major impact, and will be a solid investment for many decades still.

“I think newspapers in print form, in most of the cities and towns where they are present will be here in 10 and 20 years,” said Warren Buffett. “I think newspapers do a good job of serving a community where there is a lot of community interest.”

Also during this month, Doug Hiemstra, who is president of World Media Enterprises, a Berkshire Hathaway company, sent his staff a letter, letting his staff know that they would be shutting down The News and Messenger in Manassas, Virginia, by the end of the year.

He also wrote in his letter on November 14 that “The News and Messenger has lost money for a number of years under the Media General ownership, and after our team made an exhaustive review of The News and Messenger, we were unable to come up with a scenario that would result in a likelihood of profitable operations there.”

The company also announced that it would be cutting 105 jobs, mainly at The News and Messenger.

According to public filings, Berkshire Hathaway has also pared back its stake in Lee Enterprises.

Warren Buffett mentioned on Monday night during the reception that the Media General cuts were focused on that one troubled newspaper. He also mentioned that he plans to share more of his thoughts about the newspaper industry soon, and he’s working on a portion of his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders where he will discuss his take on the newspaper industry.

Ted Weschler is already proving his value to Berkshire Hathaway as much more than a stock picker. He has a knack for finding value in distressed companies. Since Ted joined Berkshire Hathaway this past January, the former hedge fund manager, at 51 years old, has already gone above and beyond the call of duty.

He’s made a bid for a mortgage business in bankruptcy, brought Berkshire Hathaway further into the newspaper publishing business through one of his negotiations, and he has reviewed potential takeover targets – all while running an equity portfolio worth multiple billions of dollars.

Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, Berkshire Hathaway’s other investment manager, oversee their own chunk of the $86.2 billion stock portfolio that Berkshire Hathaway owns. This past July, Warren Buffett gave each man $4 billion and the sole responsibility to invest it the way they choose.

Weschler is currently expanding his role with the company, and because of it, and the experience that he has, makes him an excellent candidate to take over as head of the company once the 82-year-old Warren Buffett decides to retire. We learn this from Alice Schroeder, the author of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

“He has a background in broad capital management, including private equity, mergers and acquisitions, owing businesses, and being directly involved in their management,” she said. Schroeder also mentions that takeovers are going to continue to be a very integral part of Berkshire Hathaway in his future if the company plans to continue growing at its current pace.

Just like Warren Buffett, Ted Weschler has created a style of investing that heavily relies on patience, knowing the ins and outs of any potential investment’s financials, plus a wide range of interests in many industries. We gathered this information through dozens of interviews with business acquaintances, friends and former colleagues of Weschler.

And just like Warren Buffett, Weschler created the bulk of his fortune away from Wall Street. The majority of his 30 year career was spent in his hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia, where he built a private equity firm and then started his own hedge fund later on – named Peninsula Capital Advisors. As you know, Warren Buffett decided to keep the home of Berkshire Hathaway in his hometown of Omaha, even through the entirety of its expansion. The company now employs more than 250,000 people, and it’s worth more than $200 billion.

Ted Weschler divides his time between Charlottesville and Omaha, as he collaborates with the heads of the Berkshire Hathaway operating units, and helps look into potential takeover targets, according to someone familiar with the role that wants to keep his or her identity private.

Weschler did not comment for this story, but he has helped Warren Buffett buy 63 newspapers from Media General (including the Richmond Times-Dispatch), as well as refinance its debt. He also handled the negotiations when Berkshire Hathaway bid on the assets of mortgage lender Residential Capital, which is a bankrupt unit of Ally Financial.

Associates and friends of Ted Weschler – whose father was an executive at A&P – has had a long desire to make lots of money. He wrote in his middle school yearbook that he wanted to become a millionaire, we learned from Chris Hagerty, director of advancement at Cathedral Preparatory School in Erie, Pennsylvania. Weschler also sold cigars to his fellow classmates while in high school, as they traveled to watch the school’s basketball team compete to win the state championship.

Weschler earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, where he went on to work for chemical maker W.R. Grace. For two years, he served as the assistant to J Peter Grace, who led the company for over four decades.

In his role as assistant, Weschler had to attend every budget and operating review meeting with the head of the company, as well as looking over capital requests from natural resources, restaurant, healthcare, chemical and retail operations, which we learned from Terry Daniels, then vice chairman of Grace. “It was a tremendous learning experience. You got to see executives and how they responded,” said Daniels.

Weschler joined Daniels in 1989 when he started his private equity firm, which is now named Quad-C Management, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia. Just like Warren Buffett, Ted Weschler focused on only a handful of companies for his investments, and he held those investments for many years. Before Berkshire Hathaway announced Ted Weschler’s hiring during the second quarter of 2011, the entire hedge fund’s portfolio was only spread out among nine different companies, according to filings. Peninsula owned five of those stocks just three years earlier.

Ted Weschler was responsible for Peninsula, and managed their $2 billion dollar US stockholdings from a small two room office above a Charlottesville Virginia bookstore. He often went to work in shorts and short sleeve T-shirts, we learned from Michael David, a friend and former colleague that currently runs a hedge fund in Akron, Ohio. “He’s still stunned by the fact that he’s become incredibly wealthy,” Hawes Spencer said (Weschler backed him when he started a weekly newspaper in 2002 in Charlottesville, Virginia named Hook). “If I saw a Rolex on his wrist, I would faint.”

Also like Warren Buffett, Weschler made it a point to study lots of company filings and industry publications so he can get an overall edge in any industry. He once told Michael David that he wouldn’t invest in a company unless he studied them and the idea for at least 500 hours. “He’d go on vacation and take 10-Ks and 10-Qs with him,” David said, referring to SEC reports of publicly traded companies. “He still does.” It’s not surprising that he was able land a job with Berkshire Hathaway with that approach. It also didn’t hurt that he won two charity auctions in both 2010 and 2011, which he paid $2.63 million each time to have meals with Warren Buffett.

During 2001, workers claimed that Grace’s asbestos products were causing illnesses and forms of cancer, so they declared bankruptcy. Weschler amassed a stake of roughly 15% of the chemical maker by the end of that year.

He worked with the plaintiff’s attorneys and the company, and he was able to help broker a settlement in 2008 that will create trusts that take responsibility for the asbestos claims, while protecting the shareholders from being wiped out.

“He understood the issues for my clients weren’t all dollars and cents,” says Joe Rice, one of the attorneys working on the case on behalf of the injured workers. “He was a catalyst.”

The company stock has risen around 40 times over since the initial bankruptcy filing, and it was one of the main reasons why Peninsula Capital Management gained over 1000% during the years 2000 through 2011, which is the time that Weschler closed the fund.

As of October 19, 2012, Weschler owns $3.74 million worth of Grace shares, and it’s estimated that they would currently be worth about $225 million.

Warren Buffett mentioned last year that Ajit Jain, 61, his reinsurance lieutenant, would most likely have the support of the board to become the next CEO if he decided that he wanted the job. Schroeder believes that Weschler is also a very good long-term choice if he can prove himself to Buffett. “Warren keeps describing him as an investment manager,” she says. “But the reality is his skills are more comparable to those of Warren himself.”

Here’s the bottom line: as well as overseeing a large part of Berkshire Hathaway’s $86.2 billion stock portfolio, Weschler also reviews takeover targets and negotiates deals.

During the month of June, Warren Buffett raised some eyebrows when the news told us that he was purchasing 63 newspapers from media conglomerate Media General. There were two different camps in regards to this purchasing decision. Some people thought that Warren Buffett finally lost his mind. While others believed that he noticed an opportunity that nobody else seems to recognize.

Since Warren Buffett has been such a successful investor for the last 50 or more years, I would believe that he knows a good opportunity when he sees one. The only caveat that I’ll mention is that this is definitely a speculative potential opportunity. What investors need to look at is this: do you invest in Berkshire Hathaway because of this move, or do you mimic their investment choices and begin to buy into newspapers? The answer is basically no to both questions, and I’d like to share why I feel this is so.

It’s very tempting to follow the lead of Warren Buffett because you believe he noticed another anomaly that most people didn’t understand. When this happens he’ll cause the headlines to go crazy, and people even believe that he’ll currently save the newspaper industry.

But the truth is that he didn’t actually save the newspaper industry. But he did decide to invest in the community aspect of newspapers, because he is buying small-town papers that really cannot be replaced, as opposed to big, metropolitan newspapers. This is very distinct to his investing strategy, and you need to recognize this.

He recognized what a gentleman named Bert saw.

Throughout the mid-1990s, an entrepreneur named Bert started his first newspaper in Eudora, Kansas, as opposed to the bigger and supposedly better option of De Soto, Kansas which is right on the outskirts of Kansas City. Bert said the reason he made this choice after carefully evaluating both towns is that he believed Eudora “had a better sense of community.”

If you fast-forward to May 29th of 2012, here’s what Warren Buffett said when talking to CNN Money: “in towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper.”

So that’s what Warren Buffett based his investments off of in a nutshell: Warren Buffett is one of the best investors in this world because he has the ability to take a long look at the big picture, and he will really get into the head of the local entrepreneur to try and understand what they are thinking and what they are going through. Bert opened his newspaper because of a “sense of community,” and the great Warren Buffett bought his newspapers for the exact same reason.

While Warren Buffett was doing his research, he noticed that there was no major sense of community in the large metropolitan newspapers. That’s why he really isn’t interested in purchasing a large paper like The Los Angeles Times. He told reporters, “if you live in South Central Los Angeles, you’re not interested in who dies in Beverly Hills.”

Buffett also observed that “in Grand Island, Nebraska, everyone is interested in how the football team does. They’re interested in who got married.”

They are also very interested in seeing pictures of their children and grandchildren accepting awards in the local paper, or going on class picnics and Cub Scout meetings. It’s not surprising that a lot of these pictures are often taken by the parents of the young children, and then submitted to the local paper with a little blurb about the event. The small-town news is obviously going to be interesting to anyone living in that particular small-town.

Buffett doesn’t only spend his time in Omaha, Nebraska. You can bet that he has gone to Wahoo, Ashland and Blair, Nebraska as well, so he understands the role of the local newspaper in regards to the small-town community. He also gets that a “sense of community” is all tied in with a “community ownership of the local paper.”

The local newspaper is the diary, chronicle and photo album of the local community. It provides you with a present-day history, and you get to see the perspective of people that live right in your hometown.

It’s no question that Warren Buffett is still invested in some of the larger metropolitan newspapers. He has legacy holdings in The Washington Post and The Buffalo News. He also bought the Omaha World-Herald last year, but it was most likely a civic minded gesture than a major investing opportunity.

The purchase that he made from Media General recently was a very well thought out, and hard-nosed business decision, even if it was one of high speculation. It fits right along with his “moat” criteria, since the local newspaper is basically a monopoly for that small section of the world, plus the valuation multiple fit in with the way that he likes to invest as well.

But the truth is that Warren Buffett really doesn’t know the total valuation of these newspapers at this time. He thinks he’s buying a hard asset that is currently undervalued. But he is also under the impression that a lot of these local newspapers are going to continuously lose money for the time being. Plus, he knows that the community newspapers are trying to figure out a way to stay relevant in the Internet world. Their business model has basically been turned on its head, and they have to come up with a plan that will allow them to compete.

Buffett recently told the New York Times that “I do not have any secret sauce. There are still 1400 daily papers in the United States. The nice thing about it is that somebody can think about the best answer and we can copy him. Two or three years from now, you’ll see a much better defined pattern of operations online and in print by papers.”

Warren Buffett can afford to make that particular speculation, since he only laid out $142 million, which for him is basically pocket change. The ordinary investor does not have the ability to ride the coattails of the Oracle of Omaha since they do not have the same kind of capital that he does.

There’s no particular reason for you to immediately invest in Berkshire Hathaway because of this newspaper investment. Warren Buffett said outright about this newspaper investment that “it’s not going to move the needle at Berkshire”

Second of all, there’s no way to really replicate this investment, at least in the sense that it will appeal to an ordinary investor. There is only one thing that even slightly resembles a pure play in non metro newspapers, and that is GateHouse Media. But that’s the kind of investment you want to stay away from since it lost $21.6 million last year, and their current book value is $-14.15 per share. If you were to invest in this company you would be certainly speculating, because there’s no reason to think that this investment is going to pay off anytime soon.

The other mainly newspaper public companies really aren’t all that close to the Media General buy that Buffett made. There’s mostly only big metro paper investment opportunities, like A. H. Belo Corp., but they lost $10.9 million last year. Then there is Lee Enterprises, who lost a total of $146.8 million last year. One investment that actually made money is the McClatchy Company, who brought in a total of $54.4 million last year. But it looks like their earnings are only going to grow at a rate of 5% during the next five years.

If you think the modest earnings forecast from McClatchy is very compelling, then that’s fine for you, but there are much better investment choices out there. But if you want to invest like Warren Buffett, then you need to realize that McClatchy’s Metro style newspapers are exactly what Warren Buffett has been staying away from.

I know many people find it fashionable to watch Warren Buffett and follow the moves that he makes, but it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to try and replicate this move at this time. And don’t look at this as a buy signal for the entire industry of newspapers because it’s not.