Editor and Publisher Reports

On July 17th, 2023, Bedford County, Tennessee, and its county seat of Shelbyville lost their 149-year-old newspaper of record, the Times-Gazette, as Holler Media locked the doors and fired the staff of all six community publications they owned that served counties around Nashville. Within a matter of just a few weeks, Morristown, Tennessee-based Lakeway Publishers, who owns and operates nine other community newspapers in the state plus others in Missouri and Virginia, had hired a number of the Holler staff. They also announced they were starting two new publications — The Bedford County Post and The Marshall County Post — to provide news coverage to the Shelbyville and Lewisburg, Tennessee areas. In a recent interview, Lakeway Senior Vice President Keith Ponder stated, "As Shelbyville’s long-time newspaper closed abruptly, we saw a need to serve the community with locally produced community-based journalism. We kept the team together and have worked hard to tell the stories of Bedford County. A great communit