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Outlet profile

Anson Record

U.S. local news, mostly nonpartisan community coverage

Owned byChampion Media, a privately held regional newspaper company. It bought the paper in 2017 from Civitas Media, which was owned by the private equity firm Versa Capital Management.
FundingMainly local print and digital advertising, legal and public notices, and subscriptions. It has no known billionaire or state backer, and I did not find detailed financial figures.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

The modern Anson Record was first published on January 20, 1955. Its lineage goes back to an 1881 paper, the Messenger and Intelligencer (and Ansonian). The Record, the Messenger and Intelligencer were combined in 1979. The paper was later owned by Heartland Publications. In 2012, Versa Capital Management merged Heartland with Ohio Community Media, former Freedom Communications papers and Impressions Media to form Civitas Media. Civitas sold its Carolinas newspapers, including the Record, to Champion Media in 2017. Today it is a weekly with a small staff, led by publisher Tricia Johnston and editor Matthew Sasser. I did not find notable editorial controversies. Like most small chain-owned weeklies, it focuses on county news and community content rather than a strong ideological line. My assessment of its stance toward the administration is based on its local focus, not a review of its recent national-politics coverage, which I did not examine in detail.

Sources

  1. The Anson Record (Wikipedia)
  2. About Us - The Anson Record
  3. Anson Record, The - North Carolina Press Foundation
  4. The Anson Record (Wadesboro, NC) 1955-1979 - Library of Congress

Profile compiled 2026-10-15; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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