The Tillsonburg News was a paper for the community. So it came as a great shock when, on October 7, 1988 Newfoundland Capital Corporation, which had purchased Otter Publishing from Chuck McKnight and Bill Pratt, fired most of the staff of the Tillsonburg News, including Peter Burns, Walter Kleer, Carol McKnight and Cam McKnight. Linda Saunders who was left resigned later. Newfoundland Capital Corporation was chosen because Bill Pratt and Chuck McKnight, who had been involved with The News for 69 years, believed they supported the families who worked for the paper.

This mass firing ignited the laid-off staff to create their own community newspaper in town. The core group of Carol McKnight, Peter Burns, Walter Kleer and Linda Saunders started the Tillsonburg Independent and were later joined by Cam McKnight.

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The Tillsonburg Independent was a true community newspaper and the staff that worked there, for many hours night and day, advertised that their door was always open and the coffee pot was always on.  The office was on Broadway and along with the interesting walk-ins there were many people in the community that were willing to step up and give back to this community paper, submitting stories and pictures for the effort.  As well as participating in the content, Tillsonburg’s citizens offered their financial support to the venture, subscribing and advertising in the paper.

A Promotional Edition of The Tillsonburg Independent was published on Tuesday September 19, 1989. This promotional edition featured a large picture of the staff on the cover with their location, 81 Broadway inviting community members in for coffee. The back page featured an appeal to the community to get involved by providing ideas, photographs, and articles. There were 250 charter subscribers to The Tillsonburg Independent!

Unfortunately, like all good things, the Tillsonburg Independent came to an end in late April 1993. In a case of history repeating itself, the Tillsonburg Independent would merge with the Tillsonburg News, itself a paper of the previous merger of the Tillsonburg Observer and Liberal. On May 3rd, 1993, the paper’s header read “The Tillsonburg Independent News.”  Cam McKnight was the associate publisher of the merged paper and all paid subscribers from both papers were merged into a single subscriber database with the papers both under the umbrella of Newfound Capital Corporation. This is the newspaper Tillsonburg residents receive today.