Warren Buffett is okay by our standards. The investor and his Berkshire Hathaway Media Group announced today that it was buying (and saving) 63 daily and weekly papers from the Media General communications company for $142 million ... in cash.

"Media General says the $142 million deal includes the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the Winston-Salem Journal," reports The Associated Press,  which notes that Media General will still hold onto its Tampa group--and its Tampa Tribune flagship paper.  The papers that Media General did sell are published in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Alabama.

"In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper," said Buffett in the release (sounding not unlike a journalism professor or three your blogger has had).  "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."  Of course that got us (journo geeks that we are) a little bit misty-eyed and we don't think we're the only ones. Take for example, New York Times'  daily book critic Dwight Garner, who tweeted the following: 

Hey, Warren Buffett! Buy my wife's family's Adirondack newspaper. One of last family-owned independent dailies in NY. recordernews.com

— Dwight Garner (@DwightGarner) May 17, 2012

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Alexander Abad-Santos