To the surprise of no one, the newly private Tribune Co. is probably going to sell Newsday. The once-venerable New York paper, like all metro dailies, has fallen on hard times and Tribune's new CEO and owner Sam Zell has got a mountain of debt to pay down.

According to The Wall Street Journal . Long Island-based Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) and New York's Daily News as potential buyers. Rupert Murdoch probably would love to buy Newsday and combine it with News Corp's (NYSE: NWS) New York Post, but I am not sure whether the antitrust regulators would allow it. He is trying to merge everything but the editorial staffs of the Post -- never a hugely profitable enterprise -- with Newsday to save money in a joint operating agreement, the Journal says.

After spending $5 billion for Dow Jones, Murdoch needs to pick all of the low-hanging fruit he can. I expect this deal to happen. Maybe it will lead to others for papers that buyers are eager to unload. Perhaps, Murdoch might buy other Tribune papers from Zell such as The Baltimore Sun or Los Angeles Times. As the Australian tycoon showed in chasing Dow Jones, influence matters as much to him as profits. Gaining more big papers furthers that goal at the expense of shareholders.