Medway News
The Medway News was a weekly newspaper covering the Medway Towns in Kent, England. Established in 1855 as the "Military Chronicle" and "Naval Spectator", it relaunched as the "Chatham News and Rochester, Strood, Brompton & Gillingham Advertiser" on Saturday 9 July 1859. The first issue cost 1d. The final issue was published on 8 December 2011.

The newspaper was known as the "Chatham News", the "Medway News" and just the "News" but held the title "Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham News" (often known as the "Roch-Chat-Gill") for the longest period.

Until late 2008 it was published from offices in New Road Avenue, Chatham, and was one of a series of newspapers that included the "Medway Standard" and the free "Medway Adscene". However, the "Standard" ceased publication in early 2009 when the Adscene title was absorbed into the "News", "Medway" was dropped from the titlepiece and the publication day was shifted from Friday to Thursday.

The newspaper's offices moved from the centre of Chatham to Gillingham Business Park and were shared with the News's sister paper, the "East Kent Gazette", which had been based on the same site in Sittingbourne since its foundation on 21 July 1855. Both titles were then edited by Christine Rayner, editor of the "East Kent Gazette" since 1995.

The "News" featured general news, a leisure section, a business page, a film review, comment, village news and sport. The "Medway Standard", specialised in sports news, particularly coverage of Gillingham Football Club.

Previous reporters at the newspaper include Martin Brunt, now crime correspondent for Sky News, Peter Salmon, later controller of BBC One, Robert Tyrer, now associate editor of "The Sunday Times", and John Williams, a political editor at "The Daily Mirror" and the "London Evening Standard", and author of a draft of the September Dossier for war in Iraq.

The editor until its closure was Christine Rayner and the news editor Nicola Jordan.

The "News" was part of Kent Regional News and Media, owned since July 2007 by Northcliffe Media. Other titles in KRNM included the "East Kent Gazette" (which published its last edition on 7 December 2011) the "Whitstable Times", Herne "Bay Times", "Isle of Thanet Gazette", "Thanet Times", "Folkestone Herald" and "Dover Express".

Northcliffe announced closure of the News just a fortnight after a failed takeover by the rival Kent Messenger Group, which would have seen the KRNM titles subsumed into the KM portfolio.
KRNM bosses blamed the Office of Fair Trading for halting the deal. The office referred the newspaper deal to the Competition Commission, because of the possible monopoly it might create. This meant the cost of the deal and process of takeover would have increased.

The last edition of the "News" was published on Thursday 8 December 2011, a day after the final "Gazette". Northcliffe had intended to cease publication a week earlier but the editor and staff asked to publish a farewell souvenir issue looking back over the News's 156 years.
Q797782
Medway Towns
LOC
Q729006
Chatham
LOC
None
Medway Standard
UNK
None
Medway Adscene
UNK
Q48943
Gillingham Football Club
ORG
Q16186165
Martin Brunt
PER
Q217228
Sky News
ORG
Q7176759
Peter Salmon
PER
Q191472
BBC One
ORG
None
Robert Tyrer
UNK
Q221986
The Sunday Times
MEDIA
Q217623
The Daily Mirror
MEDIA
Q666494
London Evening Standard
MEDIA
Q7452220
September Dossier
UNK
Q796
Iraq
LOC
Q22101952
Northcliffe Media
ORG
Q7079218
Office of Fair Trading
MEDIA
Q5156322
Competition Commission
MEDIA
Q6807415
Medway News
MEDIA
Q6807415
Medway News
MEDIA
1855-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1855
DATE
1859-07-09T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
9 July 1859
DATE
2011-12-08T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
8 December 2011
DATE
2008-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2008
DATE
2009-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2009
DATE
1855-07-21T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
21 July 1855
DATE
1995-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1995
DATE
2007-07-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
July 2007
DATE
2011-12-07T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
7 December 2011
DATE
2011-12-08T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
8 December 2011
DATE
+1^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#decimal
1
NUMBER
inception