The Macon Telegraph and the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer have entered into a “landmark transaction” with the Georgia Trust for Local News.
Through the Georgia Trust, both legendary newspapers will be under local control and under a nonprofit umbrella.
The Georgia Trust is a subsidiary of the National Trust for Local News, a nonprofit that acquires, stabilizes and revitalizes news organizations across the country. Local funders in Macon and Columbus helped ensure these two historic newspapers will benefit from the National Trust’s model for sustaining trusted sources of local news.
“This is a great day for local news in Georgia,” said Tom Wiley, CEO of the National Trust for Local News. “These vital community assets will not only be preserved, but also reinvigorated and strengthened for a vibrant future.”
To mark the acquisition, the Georgia Trust will temporarily remove the Ledger-Enquirer’s and the Telegraph’s digital paywalls to welcome all members of the community to connect with these publications.
The Telegraph has operated as a journalistic mainstay in Middle Georgia for 200 years and has a legacy of community-changing investigative journalism, including a Pulitzer Prize for specialized reporting.
The Ledger-Enquirer has long been Columbus’ leading news source and has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for public service.
This is the first change of ownership in 20 years for both newspapers that were once part of the prestigious and respected Knight-Ridder chain. The Georgia Trust acquired the two newspapers from McClatchy Media.
With this acquisition, the Georgia Trust now operates 21 local newspapers and digital platforms across Middle, West and South Georgia, covering a geography of more than one million people.
That includes an expanded presence in Macon, where it currently operates The Macon Melody, plus expansion into Columbus, the state’s second-largest city. The Columbus coverage area includes the western part of the state and eastern sections of Alabama.
The National Trust’s growth model leverages philanthropic investment to accelerate local publishers’ ability to drive earned revenue from subscriptions, advertising, events and other emerging sources. The nonprofit ownership model allows economies of scale among the 21 newspapers in Georgia.
In 2024, with a $5 million grant from Knight Foundation, the National Trust launched a startup community newsroom, the Macon Melody. The community journalism initiative produced by Georgia Trust reporters in Macon has established the Melody as a vital local resource and partner in Middle Georgia. The Knight Foundation’s support strengthened the infrastructure that makes today’s acquisitions possible.
Another major donor of the Georgia Trust is the Peyton Anderson Foundation, which honors the legacy of Peyton T. Anderson, Jr., former owner and publisher of the Telegraph. The Peyton Anderson Foundation is providing funding for the acquisition of the Telegraph.
The Melody and The Telegraph will combine their resources into a single news source. It will operate as the Telegraph and blend the Telegraph’s scale, domain authority, and subscriber base with Melody’s community-first voice, local relationships, and entrepreneurial muscle. The Melody will become a section within the Telegraph highlighting the people, places and moments reflective of Macon. The combined newsroom will be housed in Mercer University’s Reg Murphy Center for Collaborative Journalism.
Funding for the acquisition of the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus was provided by a grant from the Local News and Information Fund at the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley.
Through the Community Foundation, more than a dozen individuals and community stakeholders contributed to the fund’s support of the Ledger-Enquirer acquisition, underscoring the enthusiastic local support for the newspaper’s future under nonprofit ownership.
The Ledger-Enquirer newsroom will move to a space on Broadway, in Columbus’ central business district. The space is rented from CSU Properties, the charitable arm that manages real estate holdings for the benefit of Columbus State University.
CSU and the Georgia Trust for Local News are in talks to bolster collaboration that will allow students to gain hands-on experience at the publication.
The acquisition of both newspapers comes at a pivotal time for the Georgia Trust, which hired a new executive director, Cynthia DuBose, who started in her role on June 1. She succeeded DuBose Porter, a longtime newspaper veteran, in that role.
The National Trust is providing the capital and runway to transform local newsrooms into modern enterprises, and the Georgia Trust will ensure that each newsroom relies on local management. DuBose and the Georgia Trust will be leading that with Georgia Trust newsrooms throughout the state.
“What makes this historic transaction especially exciting is the groundswell of national, statewide and community-based financial support to enable these storied publications’ shift to nonprofit ownership and local management,” DuBose said in a statement. “Under the Georgia Trust’s stewardship, these publications will recapture their role in civic leadership and ensure a strong commitment to hyper-local coverage and enhanced community engagement.”
The National Trust for Local News created the Georgia Trust for Local News in January 2024, when it announced the acquisition of 18 community newspapers to protect Middle Georgia communities from becoming news deserts.
It has designed a model to build sustainable journalism in Middle Georgia. The Georgia Trust has since grown to 21 community titles serving Middle, West and South Georgia, including the newest acquisitions. Many of those newspapers have been serving their communities for more than 100 years.
The survival of these community titles requires building new revenue models, modernizing existing technology and strengthening digital capabilities — investments that can be a challenge for small publishers or family-owned papers.
The Georgia Trust launched new websites and email newsletters as a first step in a strategic digital transformation for each of these local newsrooms to broaden access to trusted local information. Those investments continue, with recent launches of a vertical video series and podcast.
Several major institutional donors, including the Knight Foundation, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation and the Marguerite Casey Foundation, have laid the groundwork for the success of the Georgia Trust.
In 2023, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced it was granting $5 million to the National Trust for Local News to launch a new newsroom in Macon, one of the 26 cities where the Knight brothers once owned and operated newspapers. That created the Macon Melody, which will now join forces with The Telegraph.
These pivotal initial investments have now spurred a wave of local support for the acquisition of The Macon Telegraph and The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
