You’re reading it here first: After several months of trying to get the deal done, Citizen-J site NowPublic is about to be sold to a non-traditional buyer: local news network Examiner.com, which is controlled by Philip Anschutz’s Clarity Media Group, we have learned. The price is around $25 million range, according to a source, including a part of that as an earnout. Also from a source, the other potential buyers included AP, Fox News, Glam Media and even Technorati, though not clear who all were interested in late stages.

SEE ALSO: News Corp. Sells Weekly Standard To Anschutz

Vancouver-based NowPublic started in 2005 by Canadian entrepreneur Leonard Brody, and has raised about $12 million from investors such as Rho Ventures, Brightspark and the Working Opportunity Fund.

Clarity is the owner of Washington D.C. Examiner, The San Francisco Examiner and the Independent newspapers, and owns Examiner.com, the network of local sites in the cities it operates in. Although Examiner.com similarly focuses on citizen journalism, it has little in common with NowPublic. NowPublic has citizen reporters in 140 countries, while its new parent claims to have 13,000 “examiners” (its name for its citizen journos) in 20 markets across the U.S. At a time of sliding ad revenues, and increased interest in citizen-journalism, the timing certainly seems right for a combo.