Laurinburg Exchange
U.S. local community newspaper (center-right editorial lean)
Background
The Laurinburg Exchange has served Laurinburg and Scotland County since 1882, when it was founded as a weekly. It followed the short-lived Laurinburg Enterprise (1880-1881), and J.D. Bundy was its publisher from 1882 to 1911. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries it passed through chain ownership, most recently Heartland Publications, which was part of Civitas Media. In June 2017 Champion Media bought Civitas's North Carolina and South Carolina assets, including the Exchange. That deal covered six dailies and 16 weeklies. Champion Media is a privately held chain, run by Scott T. Champion and his son Corey, and it has kept buying papers, including some shuttered South Dakota titles in 2025. The Exchange now prints about twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, which reflects the wider shrinking of local print news. Its coverage focuses on local government, schools, crime, sports and community events, with wire and syndicated content for wider news. I did not find evidence of major editorial controversies. I also did not systematically review its recent coverage of the second Trump administration, so the 'mostly neutral' stance is an inference from its local focus.
Sources
- Laurinburg Exchange (Wikipedia)
- Champion Media acquires The Exchange
- Champion Media (Wikipedia)
- Champion Media acquires Civitas assets in Carolinas
- So Much for Local Control: North Carolina Publisher Snaps up Register, Three Other Shuttered SD Papers (Dakota Free Press)
- The Laurinburg Exchange Now Digitized and Available Online at DigitalNC
Profile compiled 2026-11-07; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.