Occasionally, people ask us how old is the Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News.

When we say it was founded in 1870, they look at us as if wondering whether we were around back then. We weren’t.

Josh Harmon was, He started it, so we can’t claim credit.

Josh was a Civil War veteran, entrepreneur and business owner with experience as a printer.

Lexington had buried several other small newspapers before the War of Northern Aggression.

A small town recovering from Sherman’s visit and Reconstruction needed a newspaper.

Josh’s friends talked him into starting the Lexington Dispatch, which just goes to show what  friends can get you into!

Later the Lexington Dispatch became the Dispatch-News when it absorbed a competitor.

The newspaper lasted for 114 years under family ownership.

Saving the Newspaper

Mark Ethridge sold the paper to our family and a silent partner in 1984.

It was on the brink of bankruptcy, so it took us another11 months to get out of debt and begin earning a profit.

Although we were family owners, we were still the minority managing partners. Minority ownership is worth, as Albin Barkley once described the vice presidency, "not more than a bucket of spit."

In 1991, our corporate partners forced us out.

How Corporations Work

Thereafter, the Dispatch-News went through nine years of corporate control, seven editors and three absentee owners.

The newspaper had a succession of competent publishers and editors after we left. But in many ways their hands were tied by corporate "bean counters."

Corporate publishers and editors are managers hanging on the end of a long corporate chain. They can’t act independently.

This is just another sign of the growing corporatization of America.

The "big box" stores are slowly draining money out of our communities.

Faced with such competition, small business owners are closing their doors.

The same’s true of TV and radio.

The broadcasters in our are are absentee owners whose sole mission is to make their shareholders wealthy. It's the American way that means community needs come second.

How Family Ownership Works

We are fortunate in our state.

We have independently-owned newspapers like the Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News in many communities.

Their owners live in the towns they serve, employ local people, support local charities, coach ball teams, teach Sunday school and provide political leadership.

The profits they generate stay in the community to support it.

The profits the "big boxes" generate leave the community forever.

These family owners consider publishing the local newspaper as a sacred trust.

We do, too. And we don't want to sell to corporate owners. We're afraid of what will happen.

Fortunately, we have younger people on our staff who can shoulder this responsibility.

We plan to keep the Lexington County Chronicle & The Dispatch-News independently owned another 140 years!