At the very end of the Board of Supervisors meeting on September 24, the elected officials heard from someone who usually is listening when their proceedings are happening. Gracie Hart Brooks approached the microphone to report she had lost her job.
“As of about 1:30 this afternoon, the Madison County Eagle editor position was eliminated,” Hart Brooks said. “I have no idea what this means for the Eagle. It’s sad. Community newspapers are important. I’m hoping someone will step in because there’s a lot of stories to tell so hopefully they will tell their stories.”
One member of the Board of Supervisors described the situation as “a real bummer.”
The editor of the Charlottesville Daily Progress confirmed today in an email that the position has been eliminated.
“In keeping with how the editor roles at the surrounding weekly newspapers were also eliminated, The Daily Progress has assumed control of operations,” said Reynolds Hutchins.
Like many newspapers across Virginia, the Madison County Eagle is owned by Lee Enterprises. The Eagle got its start as the Madison Exponent in 1910 and combined with the Madison News in 1912. The name changed 98 years ago in 1926 2026.
Hutchins said there will continue to be a print version of the Madison County Eagle and edited in Charlottesville.
The editor of the Greene Journal, an online publication, reported the departure of Harts Brooks in an editorial posted today.
“Eliminating the editor position at The Eagle makes it just another “Ghost Paper”, like the Greene County Record and Orange County Review, publications that are spit out weekly, edited by faraway staff with a variety of articles that may or may not be pertinent to the readership,” reads the editorial.
The Greene Journal is published by a company that also published the Madrapp Recorder. The company is planning to take advantage of a new Virginia law that went into effect on July 1 that allows online publications to be considered official publications of record that can accept legally required public notices.
There’s no announcement of this on the website for Lee Enterprises, nor and of the other recent layoffs reported at their newspapers across the United States.
- Lee Enterprises lays off statewide enterprise editor, loses decades of experience, Keila Szpaller, Daily Montana, September 13, 2024
- Veteran sportswriters laid off by Richmond Times-Dispatch: Bad news on a lot of levels, Chris Graham, Augusta Free Press, September 25, 2024
- More newsroom cuts at The Buffalo News, Jim Heaney, Investigative Post, September 27, 2024
Lee Enterprises also owns the Charlottesville Daily Progress having acquired the paper from Berkshire-Hathaway in early 2020. Since then the print version has been reduced to three days a week and Kelly Till is the publisher. Till also serves in that capacity at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, another Lee paper.
The Daily Progress is required to submit a Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation to the United States Postal Service. The annual subscription cost is $988 for 156 issues. A copy was published in the September 5th edition of the print newspaper.
There are sixteen owners listed in the document and none of them are from Virginia. Berkshire Hathaway is still listed as a known bondholder, mortgagee, or other security holder.
The Progress last filed this statement on June 22, 2024. They listed there were 2,881 printed copies of the paper on the date of the closest filing. Of these, 2,437 were paid for by subscribers. Additionally, 6,922 people paid for electronic copies and the total distribution is listed as 9,376.
Town Crier Productions is a paying subscriber of the Charlottesville Daily Progress.
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