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• Serving the Northwest Valley of Phoenix
About Northwest Valley Newspapers
Northwest Valley Newspapers is the region's most widely circulated and best read local newspapers. Newspapers it circulates are read by 250,000 residents of Peoria, Glendale, Sun Cities, Surprise, Youngtown and El Mirage. Northwest Valley Newspapers includes the Daily News-Sun, serving the area's retirement communities, Northwest Valley News, serving Arrowhead and northern Glendale/Peoria, and Surprise Today, which covers all of Surprise, including Sun City Grand.
The newspapers' mission is entirely local. The Daily News-Sun is full of news and features designed for retirees ranging from Baby Boomers through the Greatest Generation. Surprise Today is the local newspaper for Arizona's fastest-growing city. And Northwest Valley News chronicles the lives, education, government and lifestyle of people and businesses in Arrowhead Ranch, Fletcher Heights, Westbrook Village, the Bell Road Corridor and emerging north Peoria.
The newspapers emerged in 1956 from humble beginnings of two mimeographed pages in Youngtown to become the only local daily newspaper serving the West Valley suburbs of metropolitan Phoenix and the most widely circulated papers in the Northwest Valley.

Here is a timeline of the
Northwest Valley Newspapers' history:


1956 - Two mimeographed pages of news are published by Marshal Adams as the Youngtown News. Youngtown is the brainchild of Ben Schleifer, one of the first developers to see the possibilities of communities populated entirely by senior citizens. The Youngtown Historical Society keeps a few copies of these earliest issues at Clubhouse Square.

1957 - The Youngtown News changes to a twice-monthly publication, professionally typeset on a small tabloid size. The paper begins publishing photographs. Adams takes on partner Sydney Lambert.

1958 - In poor health since moving to Youngtown, Adams dies on Aug. 31. Lambert assumes the ownership and operation of The Youngtown News.
The slogan under The Youngtown News masthead at one point in the paper's existence boasts of "All the News That Residents Want to See and Read in Print."
Advertisers mostly are Glendale and Phoenix businesses, as there are few businesses yet established in Youngtown in the late 1950s.
Among the visitors to the pioneering retirement community of Youngtown is Delbert Eugene Webb, owner of a Phoenix construction firm and co-owner of the New York Yankees. When Webb's company applies to Maricopa County for zoning to build 1,000 houses in "the Youngtown area" - across Grand Avenue to the east on land that had long been used for farming - The Youngtown News rejoices.

1960 - Six months after the Webb company begins selling houses in the fledging Sun City, Lambert changes the newspaper's name to the Youngtown News and Sun City Sun. The paper also revamps its slogan: "Youngtown's First Newspaper and Now Sun City's First."
Lambert decides to sell his tabloid to entrepreneurs, Burt and Ursula Freireich. Burt had been a sports writer with The Phoenix Gazette but dreamed of owning his own paper.
With a $1,500 down payment and lots of confidence - but with little experience in photography or crafting display advertising - Burt Freireich takes control of the paper, which is redubbed the News-Sun for the July 22, 1960, issue. The paper soon goes to weekly publication.

1977 - The News-Sun becomes the Daily News-Sun, publishing six days a week.

1984 - The Freireichs sell the Daily News-Sun to Ottaway Newspapers Inc., a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

1995 - The Prospector, a tabloid forerunner of the Northwest Valley News, begins publication in Glendale/Peoria on Jan. 13.

1996 - Surprise Today begins as a monthly tabloid.

1997 - Ottaway announces the sale of the newspapers to Thomson Newspapers. Sister publications include the East Valley Tribune and Ahwatukee Foothills News.

1999 - Surprise Today becomes a weekly tabloid publication and expands circulation.

2000 - Freedom Communications Inc., owner of 28 daily and 37 weekly newspapers plus eight television stations, becomes the owner of the Daily News-Sun and its assets in a sale that involves all newspapers in Thomson's Arizona holdings.

2001 - Surprise Today changes to a broadsheet publication and expands circulation. The Prospector changes to the Northwest Valley News and also becomes a broadsheet newspaper with expanded circulation.

Today - The three publications of the Northwest Valley Newspapers group, plus the free Daily News-Sun Plus weekly publication that reaches all of the Sun Cities, covers the distinct communities that make up the Northwest Valley of metropolitan Phoenix. The publications saturate the Northwest Valley and are delivered to nearly 120,000 households, reaching a quarter of a million readers - by far the greatest penetration of any publication circulation in the area.

The Daily News-Sun offers news, lifestyle and financial information mainly to the retirement audience in Sun City, Sun City West and Sun City Grand, plus seniors in Glendale, Peoria and Surprise.

Surprise Today is the hometown newspaper covering Surprise and El Mirage, while the Northwest Valley News provides local news, sports and entertainment to residents of Peoria and Glendale.
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