HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
For more than 131 years, The Mount Airy News has served the people of Surry County as their primary source of news, as well as a guide to satisfy the community’s appetite for goods and services through advertising of local merchants. The Mount Airy News traces its heritage back to 1880, when the first issue was published. The News may be the oldest continuously operated business in Mount Airy, starting as a weekly publication just 15 years after the Civil War concluded. Over those decades, the newspaper grew to publish twice a week, then three times each week, and eventually became a five-day-a-week daily.
In more recent years, the newspaper added a sixth, and then a seventh, day of publication and now serves its readers seven days a week, every single day of the year. Like most business that have been around for more than 130 years, The Mount Airy News has undergone some changes, including a few in ownership. Heartland Publications, a firm which focuses on community newspapers, purchased The Mount Airy News and a number of other papers in the region in 2007. In the summer of that year, Gary Lawrence, the company’s chief operating officer, moved to Mount Airy and was named publisher of The Mount Airy News.
Since Lawrence became publisher, The News has shifted back to its mission of being a true community newspaper.
The Mount Airy News is a regional printing hub, with more than 10 newspapers and other products being printed here, including tri-weekly Elkin Tribune and the weekly newspapers The Stokes News, The Pilot, The Carroll News, The Yadkin Ripple, The Weekly Independent and the twice-a-week newspaper The Jefferson Post.
MULTIMEDIA DELIVERY TO A LARGE % of the COMMUNITY
Our goal of giving readers a balanced and fair account of what goes on in this community and elsewhere in the world will never change, while the means through which we deliver your community news and information has expanded rapidly. Today, our community members can take their news in print seven times a week, through e-mail daily, online and using their mobile devices anytime, as well as through live streaming broadcasts from locations around town. Currently we reach more than 70,000 community members across these various products.
MISSION STATEMENT
The Mount Airy News seeks to provide the news the community needs, reported faithfully and fully, with respect for all and favor to none. We strive to be authoritative and insightful, to inform and to delight.
To accomplish this mission, we set for ourselves the following goals:
CLOSING APPEAL FOR COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Our news and information products have our name on it, however we want you to think of it as yours, too. Use it, enjoy it, and let us know how we can make it better. We are always eager to hear from you.
Contact Information: Editor John Peters, 336-786-4141 or 336-719-1931, jpeters@heartlandpublications.com www.mtairynews.com
