There is speculation that the Hudson Reporter, which operates a chain of eight weekly newspapers in Hudson County, has been sold.

Co-publisher Lucha Malato declined to discuss reports of the sale.

“I have no comment,” Malato told The New Jersey Globe.

Sources say that a group of employees were told of the sale on Monday after signing non-disclosure agreements. No word yet on how the unconfirmed sale might affect staff.

The chain was started by real estate developer Joe Barry in 1983. He later sold it to Malato and David Unger; they added the Bayonne Community News in 2004 to a group that now publishes in Jersey City, Hoboken, North Bergen, Secaucus, Union City, Weehawken and West New York. Their offices on a prime corner of Hoboken were sold in 2016 and the company has been operating out of Bayonne.