Lakeland Gazette

Mission Statement

Lakeland Gazette “Where local always matters.”

Our mission is to publish a distinguished and profitable community newspaper. Among our overall goals are:

To publish a community newspaper whose focus will be excellence in terms of news and advertising content, reproduction, and customer service.

To maximize profits consistent with product quality, but in no case less than required to assure long-term growth and our editorial independence.

To be fundamentalists in our support of the public right to know; and the right of free speech and press.

And to provide aggressive and visionary leadership.

This mission will be accomplished through the teamwork of professionals who are dedicated to truth, integrity, loyalty, quality, and hard work. We believe that a community must first know about itself in order to act in its own best interest.

We believe that a strong newspaper builds a strong community

The principles that the staff, editorial board, and corporation of the Lakeland Gazette should operate on are:

• To assertively seek content that has high interest, impacts the reader, provokes discussion, and advances the reader’s knowledge.
• To react quickly to any newsworthy events, around Lakeland or in another part of the world (if it impacts our readers).
• To make the products as relevant to readers as possible by knowing what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen in the news and our community.
• To create a product that is a reflection of the diversity of the backgrounds, goals and interests of the readers and the community.
• To consistently adhere to the highest ethical guidelines and foster the most professional environment possible at all levels.
• To develop and promote student journalists through a school mentoring program.