N-G Celebrates 225 Years

N-G Celebrates 225 Years Anniversary Event Looks Back, Ahead

It takes a big birthday cake for a 225-year-old, and The News-Gazette’s cake lived up to that expectation.

The newspaper celebrated two and a quarter centuries of bringing local news and information to the Rockbridge area last Thursday with an event at The Livery in Lexington.

Over 80 people enjoyed the cake and hors d’oeuvres, saw a video on the history of the paper produced especially for the occasion, and heard remarks from Washington and Lee journalism professor Patrick Walters, Stephanie Wilkinson, president of the newly formed Rockbridge Civic Media Foundation, and News-Gazette publisher Matt Paxton.

The video traced the history of the newspaper from its founding in 1801 as the Rockbridge Repository through multiple name changes to become the Lexington Gazette. A second antecedent of The News-Gazette, the Rockbridge County News, was started in 1884. The Gazette and the County News merged in 1962 to form The News-Gazette. The video is available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QATnguVyNLA.

The video was produced by Fotochrome Design, a video production company based in Richmond.

Professor Walters talked about the state of local news today. He pointed to data from the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism that indicated the loss of nearly 3,500 newspapers since 2005. He noted that the number of newspaper jobs in America has declined by over three-quarters during the same time period, and that many newspapers that once employed dozens of journalists now have newsrooms a fraction of that number.

Paxton told those gathered that he is committed to the paper remaining under local ownership and control. He also talked about the management succession for the newspaper, saying that both he and editor Darryl Woodson would be retiring in the next several years, and that finding successors to them, either from within the company or from outside, would be a priority.

He talked about the current business model of the paper, which has had to adapt because of the decline in print advertising over the past decades. He said that print advertising still remains an important contributor to the paper’s income. Subscriber revenue is holding steady. The third leg of the paper’s revenue stool is income from publishing magazines, some of which appear in the paper and some of which are standalone, and are not all distributed in Rockbridge County.

The fourth leg of the stool will come from philanthropy – through grants and contributions made to sustain the paper’s local news operation. He expressed the hope that philanthropy might fund additional reporters for the paper, dedicated to specific areas such as education, health care and housing.

Paxton described two recent developments that will play a role in the newspaper’s philanthropic efforts. The first, the paper’s acceptance by the Lenfest institute of Journalism, a 501(c)3 organization based in Philadelphia, for fiscal sponsorship. Fiscal sponsorship allows donors to make tax deductible contributions to the Lenfest Institute for the benefit of The News-Gazette. The News-Gazette is then able to apply to the Institute for grants for specific charitable purposes.

Lenfest is a familiar name to local residents: the Lenfest Institute was founded in 2016 with a multi-million dollar endowment by the same Jerry Lenfest who has been a major benefactor of Washington and Lee University, and for whom the Lenfest Center for the Performing Arts is named.

The second development is the creation of the Rockbridge Civic Media Foundation by a local group headed by Stephanie Wilkinson. RCMF has obtained 501c3 status. See the companion story on the RCMF in this issue of the paper.

Paxton addressed the question of contributing to a for-profit business like The News-Gazette. He said that the for-profit and nonprofit distinction is primarily a tax construct. Both for-profits and nonprofits need to generate a surplus of revenue over costs to survive and re-invest in the enterprise. Local community newspapers aren’t making stockholders rich – in today’s world, success can be described paying all the bills, paying the staff a fair wage, and keeping a cushion in the bank for emergencies. Non-publicly traded businesses like The News-Gazette don’t have to answer to quarterly earnings calls – they can take the long view and look at what is needed to still be here in a decade or more.

Paxton said, “We also see that we serve two imperatives – one is to make sure we’re financially viable, but the other is to serve the community though the work that we do. Both are important, and a successful local news organization doesn’t exist without recognizing that both of these much continually be addressed in the short and long term. “