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The Story of The News-Gazette in Lexington, Virginia

The combined paper took its name from both of its predecessors, calling itself The News-Gazette. The News-Gazette, published weekly in Lexington, Va on Wednesdays, serves Rockbridge County and the cities of Lexington and Buena Vista. The newspaper is part of a publishing tradition that goes back to 1801, which saw the founding of what became the Lexington Gazette. For the past year, Kendal at Lexington’s Culture and Entertainment Committee has featured events designed to help residents and the greater Lexington/Rockbridge community embrace the power of history, story and connection. Along with the breadth of content that The News-Gazette and The Weekender provide, Paxton said the paper focuses on the quality of writing and said that aspect sets the newspaper apart from others.

Its editorials often serve to raise awareness of problems or areas of concern for local government officials and for the public at large. Editorials often spark letters to the editor sharing views different from those expressed mike chabot gay in the editorial, which the newspaper welcomes. The Saturday publication, The Weekender, has no hard news but offers feature and travel stories. The Weekender uses content from freelance writers as well as local staff.

The Rockbridge County paper, founded in 1869, traces its origins to the Union, a weekly Democratic paper founded in 1832. In 1853, with Alphonso Smith as editor, the title reverted to the more straightforward Gazette. The paper supported the American, or Know-Nothing, Party, a short-lived political movement intent on stemming the tide of Irish Catholic immigrants. The company, still locally owned in the face of rapid media consolidation, takes pride in its deep local roots.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Today’s News-Gazette continues the 218-year tradition of community journalism, covering the county and the two cities of Lexington and Buena Vista. In 1884, two former employees of the Gazette, A. Poe Boude and J. Scott Moore, struck out on their own and started the Rockbridge County News.

The News-Gazette still has several county correspondents in 2016. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the Gazette weathered paper shortages, worn type, and economic hardship. It was reduced to quarto size, the number of pages went from four to two, and it appeared just twice monthly.

Because a building that housed the newspaper had burned and a subsequent location had been threatened by a nearby fire, the owners incorporated mostly fireproof materials in the construction of the building. This building, with additions, still serves as the home of The News-Gazette. There were 1,875 press releases posted in the last 24 hours and 312,305 in the last 365 days. “The last major thing we did was change over completely to computer pagination,” he said. “We were using cut and paste up until about three years ago” in some parts of the publication.