To our readers

From the Chatham Media Group

Posted

Welcome to the new Chatham News + Record.

We’d like to take this opportunity, with this first issue, to do something a bit unorthodox: to write directly to you, our readers, a little about our vision for the newspaper you’re holding in your hands.

As the new owners of this enterprise, we’re committed to Chatham County. We believe local ownership of the local newspaper is a vital tool for citizens to use to be informed about the place they live and work – particularly in a place changing and evolving as quickly as Chatham and its municipalities. We’re honored to be given the trust of the Resch family to continue to steward the newspaper into the 21st century not only as a way to bring you news and information and more, but to assist in supporting innovative education and to work toward expanding economic development activities for all current and future Chatham County citizens. 

We said this a few weeks ago in announcing our acquisition of The Chatham News and The Chatham Record, but we think it bears repeating again: we believe it’s critical that citizens in every community in which they live have a local news source that provides accurate, timely and compelling information about things which directly impact and influence them, as well as about other things that reflect their own interests. That’s part of what will drive us. A newspaper needs to be a part of the fabric of a community, and we eagerly anticipate earning your support.

In turn, we’ll be supporting the activities of the Chatham community. As owners, we each have a long track record of supporting improved educational opportunities, including innovations in K-14 education, and believe in boosting economic development to provide good jobs and an expanding tax base for the county and its municipalities. We’ll continue to do that through the Chatham News + Record, and through print and other digital platforms.

Chatham County is sure to prosper in the years to come, and that means good things for its people. We’re eager to help tell that story, and with your support and readership we will build a sustainable newspaper that will prosper as well.

Author and media observer David Sax wrote in his 2016 book, “The Revenge of Analog,” that print products such as newspaper command an authenticity and credibility that digital screens can only mimic. We hope you’ll find a satisfying “direct contact,” as Sax has described the tactile physical experience a reader has with a printed “real object,” with the Chatham News + Record.

Chatham Media Group, Bill Horner III, Kirk Bradley, Chris Ehrenfeld