McClatchy has left an online advertising partnership with Tribune and Gannett to join a rival group of publishers that is in the final stages of negotiating a deal with Yahoo, The Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Thursday.
A final agreement on the Yahoo deal could be announced next week, the paper said, citing unnamed sources.
The deal would allow an advertiser to easily purchase space across multiple newspaper sites, the paper said.
The rival group, led by Hearst Corp. and MediaNews Group includes 12 publishers that represent more than 250 U.S. newspapers, the Journal reported.