What Is The News-Gazette Website?

Updated

The News-Gazette (thenews-gazette.com) is the website of a weekly, family-owned newspaper serving Lexington, Buena Vista, and Rockbridge County, Virginia, published since 1801. It is a local community news source rather than a national outlet: the homepage mixes reporting on roads and schools with high-school sports results, obituaries, photo galleries, videos, and a community events calendar. The site signals subscription access (a "subscribe" option and PayPal as a payment platform), so expect some content to sit behind a subscription rather than being fully open.

What the site covers

The homepage is organized into labeled sections, which gives a clear picture of what you can find:

Section What it contains (from the site)
News Local headlines such as a crash blocking lanes of I-81 near exit 188, a Rockbridge County school bus crash, VMI resuming its evening cannon blast, and a governor's visit
Sports High-school and local results, e.g. "'Cats Handle Waynesboro," "Rockets Blast Blues, 45-13," and a hall-of-fame induction
Arts & Entertainment Community features such as anniversary notices, a bird club walk, an exhibit at Staniar, and a fall festival
Obituaries Individual obituary entries with a "see more" link to the full list
Videos Local video items, including a lieutenant governor's comments on local media
Photo Galleries Multi-photo sets (e.g., 35 photos from a Dolly Day event, storm damage, wildfire smoke sunsets)
Calendar Recurring "Calendar of Events" entries posted weekly

Articles carry upload dates, so you can judge how current a story is before reading.

Who it is for

  • Residents and former residents of Lexington, Buena Vista, and Rockbridge County who want local news, school sports, and obituaries in one place.
  • People tracking a specific local event — a road closure, a school incident, or a community calendar item — where a regional paper is more likely to cover it than national media.
  • Readers researching local history or institutions, given the paper's lineage back to 1801 and its coverage of places like VMI.

If you need national or international news, this is not the right source; its value is hyper-local.

How to use it

  1. Open thenews-gazette.com. The homepage leads with rotating top stories, followed by News, Sports, Arts & Entertainment, Obituaries, Videos, Photo Galleries, and Calendar.
  2. Use the section labels to jump to what you need — for example, go straight to Obituaries for a specific name, or Calendar for upcoming events.
  3. Check the upload date shown with each article to confirm it is current.
  4. If a story is restricted, look for the subscribe option. The site indicates subscription access and lists PayPal among its payment platforms; pricing details are not stated on the page, so confirm terms at the point of sign-up.

Limits to keep in mind

The homepage excerpt shows headlines and dates but not full article text, so the depth of free versus subscriber content isn't clear from the landing page alone. Treat the subscription signal as a prompt to check access terms rather than an assumption that everything is free or fully paywalled.