Gannett said it plans to sell the Knoxville Journal.

Ronald D. McMahan, who began his newspaper career as a Journal copy boy and became editor of the Knoxville, Tenn., paper in 1981, is buying the paper with William C. McKinney, previously publisher of the Reporter in Lansdale, Pa. No purchase price was disclosed, but Monday’s editions of the Journal put the sale at between $22 million and $30 million. McMahan, 48, and McKinney, 36, will divide equally 100% of the stock in the Journal. Journal officials list its circulation at about 60,000.