Three of the biggest newspaper publishers in the United States, the Gannett Company, Knight-Ridder Inc. and the Tribune Company, are joining forces to buy 75% of the news aggregator Topix.net, a Web site that monitors more than 10,000 online news sources.
Each publisher will own 25 percent of the company. Topix.net, based in Palo Alto, Calif., will retain the rest and continue to run the site. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.