By Tabitha Evans Moore | Editor & Publisher
LYNCHBURG, Tenn. — I did not expect The Lynchburg Times to become central to Gateway at Lynchburg LP’s lawsuit against Metro Moore County and its Planning Commission, but that is the position this newsroom now occupies.
The Lynchburg Times became a focal point in a zoning dispute now before Chancery Court today, when attorneys argued over whether Moore County complied with state and local public notice requirements in adopting a 2025 zoning ordinance amendment tied to the proposed Gateway at Lynchburg development.
On Monday, January 12, Chancery Court Judge J.B. Cox heard arguments in a case that could overturn a 2025 zoning ordinance amendment challenged by Gateway at Lynchburg LP, a developer of affordable and senior housing. Gateway is seeking to void the amendment, arguing Moore County failed to comply with state and local public notice requirements before adopting changes that halted its proposed 42-unit affordable housing project.
During the hearing, Gateway’s attorney outlined multiple alleged procedural failures, beginning with how the county claims it notified the public of the zoning amendment. According to Gateway, Moore County did not publish a legal notice for either the first or second reading of the ordinance in a newspaper of general circulation, nor did it post notice in the statewide public notice repository operated by the Tennessee Press Association.
Instead, the county has pointed to an April 23, 2025, online story summarizing a Metro Council meeting published by The Times entitled “Metro Council taps the brakes of growth, again, with apartment zoning changes.”
Gateway argued that Tennessee Court of Appeals precedent is clear: unpaid, informational news items do not satisfy statutory legal-notice requirements. Gateway further contended that the post lacked a proper caption, failed to include the full ordinance summary, and did not meet the minimum notice period required by law.
{Editor’s Note: To read the original article, tap this link.}
The court’s eventual decision will determine whether the contested zoning amendment remains in effect and whether Gateway’s proposed development may proceed under the county’s previous zoning rules – a ruling that will also clarify how local governments are expected to meet public notice requirements when adopting zoning changes. An expected written decision is pending.
When Legal Notice Meets a Digital Reality
This case highlights a question courts are increasingly being asked to confront: how public notices should be defined and evaluated in communities where digital news has become the primary source of local information.
The court’s deliberation underscores the importance of carefully applying statutory requirements as written. At the same time, this case exposes a growing gap between how legal notice is defined in law and how communities now receive and rely on local information.
Whether publication of the article in The Times satisfies statutory notice requirements is for the courts to decide, but The Lynchburg Times meets every practical test of a legitimate local news source. Here’s why.
1 | The Times has established a record of timely, professional journalism. Founded in 2019, The Lynchburg Times has published continuously for more than five years. Its reporting adheres to the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics and is produced by a journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local government and public affairs in Lynchburg.
2 | The Times breaks national-level news. Since 2019, we’ve published thousands of stories, covered hundreds of public meetings, and broken multiple national level stories. When Silicon Ranch chose Metro Moore County for one of the largest solar farms in the state, I got the exclusive and The Times broke the story. When Farm Credit Mid-America sued the folks at The Nearest Green Distillery for breach of contract, we not only broke the story locally, we were the only media the Weavers spoke to on the record in the days that followed. On both accounts, my stories were quoted in state and national news reports from print to TV.
3 | Our reach goes well beyond The Times and Lynchburg. Thanks to an editorial partnership with Lakeway Publishers, coverage published by The Times is also published in print in The Moore County News as well as The Tullahoma News, Winchester Herald Chronicle, The Elk Valley Times, The Bedford County Post, The Manchester Times, and The Grundy County Herald. Not every article and not every newspaper every week but I’ve become a regional voice for Lynchburg.
Just last week, a reader from Beaver Dam, Kentucky, wrote to say that my coverage of issues at the digester plant in Lynchburg had been widely shared throughout his community, where residents recently faced a similar fight over a standalone $250 million digester project. He said officials there promoted the facility despite public opposition and made comparable assurances about odor, fertilizer, and pipelines, and downplayed concerns about waste being transported long distances. According to the reader, the proposal caused significant community turmoil, strained personal relationships, and led to heated – and at times embarrassing – public meetings. He told me the company ultimately abandoned the project after residents forced passage of a protective ordinance, and thanked The Lynchburg Times for reporting he believes could help other communities make informed decisions.
That’s real influence.
4 | Digital reach outpaces print every time. Print circulation metrics are a relic of a physical distribution era, useful for counting objects but increasingly disconnected from how information actually moves through communities. They persist not because they reflect reality, but because the law and professional standards have been slow to adapt.
Digital journalism, by contrast, operates in a measurable, transparent environment where readership, engagement, and geographic reach are tracked in real time. These metrics are not abstract. They show who is reading, where they live, and how widely information spreads.
For example, according to platform analytics, over the past 28 days, reporting published by The Lynchburg Times generated approximately 617,000 content views, resulting in 15,700 visits to the newspaper’s website and 173 new subscribers, all through organic distribution.
That reach does not disappear simply because it cannot be measured with a postal form or a printing press.
When residents consistently rely on digital reporting to understand what their government is doing, clinging to print-only definitions of “circulation” is not cautious — it is detached from reality.
It’s time for the Tennessee Press Association as well as state lawmakers to recognize that the old business model for news is broken and adjust their mindsets. According to the Pew Research Center, digital dominates overall news use with 86 percent of U.S. adults saying they get news at least sometimes from a smartphone, computer, or tablet, and 56 percent say they do so often — far outpacing print. That same study revealed that just seven percent of U.S. adults say they often get news from printed newspapers or magazines.
Why then, should anyone say that our community has to get information about something as crucial as public meeting notices only in a printed newspaper? Press credentials and court precedents need to be based on what citizens actually rely on to stay informed. By any meaningful metric, in Lynchburg, that something is The Lynchburg Times.
Regardless of the final verdict in Gateway’s case against Metro Moore County, I’ll continue doing what I’ve always done, which is keep citizens informed with neutral, facts-based reporting.
Labels matter far less than whether or not the public is informed. •
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