Closure
Beginning in the 1980s, the News Leader began experiencing a steady decline in circulation; the decline, that those of other afternoon newspapers at the time, was due primarily to the growth of television news outlets. By the end of the 1980s, it was obvious Richmond was no longer big enough to support separate morning and evening papers. In 1991, Media General announced that it would merge the News Leader and the Times-Dispatch into a single morning newspaper under the Times-Dispatch banner, effective June 1, 1992. News Leader publisher J. Stewart Bryan III, in referencing the company's dual-ownership of both newspapers, said, " a grand old name, but we could no longer afford the luxury of competing with ourselves."
The final edition of The Richmond News Leader was printed on May 30, with the single headline, "Nevermore." On the same day, the News Leader also printed a special commemorative magazine showing past front pages from the News Leader reporting on historic events from the 1890s to the 1990s, including the Hindenburg disaster, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Challenger disaster, and the First Persian Gulf War. The magazine also featured letters to the editor by local readers, many of whom had read the News Leader for decades, who wrote about numerous personal experiences tied with the paper. The newspaper's staff was transferred to the new Times-Dispatch after the merger took place.
The end of the News Leader attracted national attention. Stories about the newspaper and its history appeared in The Washington Post and The New York Times. National Review, a conservative periodical, hailed the conservative News Leader as "one of nation's great newspapers" and added, "his distinctive journalistic voice will be missed. Its disappearance represents yet another advance of homogenization and yet another erosion of the sense of place in American journalism. Ave atque vale."
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