Prince William County getting two weekly newspapers in 2013

Two weekly newspapers are debuting in Prince William County next week. Times Community Media will print the first issue of Prince William Times on Jan. 9, while Northern Virginia Media Services plans to publish Prince William Today the next day.

The newspapers are arriving shortly after the closing of The News & Messenger in Prince William County, a daily that published its last issue this week. Northern Virginia Media also bought InsideNoVa.com, The News & Messenger’s former website that was owned by World Media Enterprises.

PrinceWilliamTimes.com will feature content from the new paper and the Gainesville Times, a Times Community Media weekly which covers western parts of Prince William County.

Berkshire Hathaway bought the News & Messenger from Media General last spring along with 62 other papers and created World Media Enterprises. In November, World Media Enterprises announced it was closing the News & Messenger and InsideNoVa.com. In a letter to News & Messenger readers, World Media Enterprises President Doug Hiemstra said that business conditions drove the company to shut down the newspaper and they did “not see a long-term viable way to maintain a daily news operation here.”

Times Community Media serves over 650,000 readers in the Northern Virginia and Piedmont region. Prince William Times and Gainesville Times have an initial circulation of about 26,000. Prince William Times will cover the county’s central and eastern regions, while Gainesville Times will report on the western parts. Both papers will be edited by Tara Donaldson, who has covered Prince William County for 13 years.

Northern Virginia Media Services owns and operates weekly newspapers and websites in Loudoun, Fairfax and Arlington counties. With the addition of Prince William Today, Northern Virginia Media Services’ newspapers will reach almost 200,000 homes a week in Northern Virginia. Kari Pugh, former editor of InsideNova.com, will continue to edit the site as well as Prince William Today. Pugh says she hopes to have more in-depth stories in Prince William Today, which weren’t always possible with a daily newspaper.