Yancey County News

Last updated

The Yancey County News was a weekly newspaper in Burnsville, North Carolina, serving Yancey County. In operation from 2011 to 2014, it was owned and operated by Jonathan and Susan Austin.

The Yancey County News was started in January 2011 by the husband and wife team; Jonathan Austin had 30 years of journalism experience and had dreamed of starting a newspaper in his father's adopted mountain town. The paper covered Yancey County, North Carolina, which had for years been served by a local paper that didn't rock the boat. [1] [2] [3] Its paid circulation was between 1,000 [3] and 1,300; [4] the cost of a print copy was 50 cents,. [5]

Jonathan said that his intent with the newspaper was to bring "the attitude of well-funded reporting" to a small-town paper while also covering all local events. The paper covered government meetings, local sports, and also published nutrition and hunting columns. [4] In two series of investigative reports beginning with its first issue and titled "Unlawful Law Enforcement", the newspaper reported criminal abuses of absentee balloting and vote fraud organized by staff at the sheriff's department. The paper also documented that county-owned firearms were being pawned by the chief deputy, [1] [4] [5] [6] who later resigned and pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. [7]

The Yancey County News received two major American journalism awards for its work in 2011: the E.W. Scripps Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment [6] [8] [9] and the 2012 Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [10] In November 2012 it was also awarded the Tom and Pat Gish Award for courage, integrity and tenacity by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. [3] [4] [7]

The newspaper closed in summer 2014 after a local grocery store withdrew its advertising. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yancey County, North Carolina</span> County in North Carolina, United States

Yancey County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 18,470. Its county seat is Burnsville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burnsville, North Carolina</span> Town in North Carolina, United States

Burnsville is a town that serves as the county seat of Yancey County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 1,612 at the 2020 census.

<i>The Cincinnati Enquirer</i> Daily newspaper in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

The Cincinnati Enquirer is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the Enquirer is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, although the daily Journal-News competes with the Enquirer in the northern suburbs. The Enquirer has the highest circulation of any print publication in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. A daily local edition for Northern Kentucky is published as The Kentucky Enquirer.

<i>The Cincinnati Post</i>

The Cincinnati Post was an afternoon daily newspaper published in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. In Northern Kentucky, it was bundled inside a local edition called The Kentucky Post. The Post was a founding publication and onetime flagship of Scripps-Howard Newspapers, a division of the E. W. Scripps Company. For much of its history, the Post was the most widely read paper in the Cincinnati market. Its readership was concentrated on the West Side of Cincinnati, as well as in Northern Kentucky, where it was considered the newspaper of record. The Post began publishing in 1881 and launched its Northern Kentucky edition in 1890. It acquired The Cincinnati Times-Star in 1958. The Post ceased publication at the end of 2007, after 30 years in a joint operating agreement with The Cincinnati Enquirer.

The Daily Breeze is a 57,000-circulation daily newspaper published in Hermosa Beach, California, United States. It serves the South Bay cities of Los Angeles County. Its slogan is "LAX to LA Harbor".

<i>The Post and Courier</i> Newspaper in Charleston, SC

The Post and Courier is the main daily newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina. It traces its ancestry to three newspapers, the Charleston Courier, founded in 1803, the Charleston Daily News, founded 1865, and The Evening Post, founded 1894. Through the Courier, it brands itself as the oldest daily newspaper in the South and one of the oldest continuously operating newspapers in the United States. It is the flagship newspaper of Evening Post Industries, which in turn is owned by the Manigault family of Charleston, descendants of Peter Manigault.

<i>The Patriot-News</i> Newspaper in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area

The Patriot-News is the largest newspaper serving the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area. In 2005, the newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily and Sunday circulation in the United States. It has been owned by Advance Publications since 1947.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American City Business Journals</span> American newspaper chain

American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News, Street & Smith's Sports Business Daily, and Inside Lacrosse. The company is owned by Advance Publications. The company receives revenue from display advertising and classified advertising in its weekly newspaper and online advertising on its website and from a subscription business model.

<i>Knoxville News Sentinel</i> Daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee

The Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News, is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company.

The Burlington Free Press is a digital and print community news organization based in Burlington, Vermont, and owned by Gannett. It is one of the official "newspapers of record" for the State of Vermont.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paxton Media Group</span> American newspaper company

Paxton Media Group of Paducah, Kentucky, is a privately held media company with holdings that include newspapers and a TV station, WPSD-TV in Paducah. David M. Paxton is president and CEO.

<i>Bristol Herald Courier</i>

The Bristol Herald Courier is a daily newspaper owned by Lee Enterprises. The newspaper is located in Bristol, Virginia, a small city located in Southwest Virginia on the Tennessee border.

The Henderson Gleaner is the daily newspaper in Henderson, Kentucky. The newspaper is published Tuesday through Sunday mornings. It has not been published on Mondays since it was founded in the 1880s.

Henry Payne is an American editorial cartoonist for The Detroit News. He also writes articles for the National Review. In 1987, Payne was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning, and he won the Society of Professional Journalists' Excellence in Journalism Award in 2019 and 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Zusman</span>

Mark Zusman is the editor and publisher of Willamette Week, an alternative newspaper and media company based in Portland, Oregon. He has been the paper's editor since 1983, and became its publisher in 2015, when Richard Meeker stepped down from that position.

Tom Gish was an American newspaper reporter and editor, best known for his work as the owner and co-editor of The Mountain Eagle weekly newspaper alongside his wife, Pat Gish, in Whitesburg, the county seat of Letcher County, Kentucky, where his paper was the first in the eastern part of the state to challenge the damage caused to the environment resulting from strip mining.

The Mountain Eagle is a local weekly newspaper published in Whitesburg, Kentucky. It is the main newspaper of Letcher County, Kentucky and one of the primary newspapers of Eastern Kentucky.

Trib Publications is a regional newspaper chain based in Manchester, Georgia, United States.

<i>Malheur Enterprise</i> Weekly newspaper in eastern Oregon, United States

The Malheur Enterprise is a weekly newspaper in Vale, Oregon. It was established in 1909, and since October 2015 has been published by Malheur Enterprise Pub. Co. It is issued weekly on Wednesdays. Early on, it carried the title Malheur Enterprise and Vale Plaindealer. As of 2018 its circulation has been estimated at 1,207 to 1,277.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Gish</span> American journalist and publisher

Pat Gish was an American journalist, publisher and co-editor of the Whitesburg, Kentucky newspaper The Mountain Eagle, along with her husband, Tom Gish. The Gishes led The Mountain Eagle in covering controversial topics such as the effects of strip mining on the Appalachian environment and political corruption. Under the Gishes' guidance, The Mountain Eagle became a prominent rural newspaper, and the pair won many awards for their journalism. Gish also founded the Eastern Kentucky Housing Development Corporation and worked to improve living conditions in Eastern Kentucky.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lauterer, Jock (July 19, 2012). "Roadshow to Burnsville: Little paper, big courage". Blue Highways Journal. School of Media and Journalism, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
  2. 1 2 Sandford, Jason (July 29, 2012). "Small-town journalist takes big-time risk" (PDF). Asheville Citizen-Times – via University of Kentucky Department of Communications Information Studies.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Mandell, Tim (June 5, 2014). "Crusading, award-winning weekly closes after less than 3½ years when grocery chain cuts weekly ads". The Rural Blog. Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, University of Kentucky.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Porter, Hannah (December 2012 – January 2013). "A Big-City Approach to Rural Journalism". American Journalism Review .
  5. 1 2 3 Cooper, Dan (June 8, 2012). "The Tiny Newspaper In North Carolina That Scooped Up Journalism's Big Prizes". The Awl. Archived from the original on June 14, 2017. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
  6. 1 2 "2011 Winners: Distinguished Service to the First Amendment". Scripps Howard Foundation . Retrieved 2017-04-27.
  7. 1 2 "NC couple wins Gish Award". National Newspaper Association. November 29, 2012.
  8. ↑ "Scripps Howard Awards Honor Nation's Best 2011 Journalism" (news release). Scripps Howard Foundation. March 16, 2012. Archived from the original on March 22, 2012.
  9. ↑ "Yancey County paper wins national award". Asheville Citizen-Times . Retrieved 2013-10-07.[ dead link ]
  10. ↑ "Announcing the 2012 Ancil Payne Awards for Ethics in Journalism". School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon. Archived from the original on May 18, 2012.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.