End of an Era: Towson Times Will Print Its Final Edition as Towson Torch Rises

The Towson Times will publish its final print edition on Wednesday, February 25, 2026, marking the end of a long local newspaper tradition in the county seat of Baltimore County.​

In a front‑page “Note to Readers,” the Towson Times announced that changing reader habits, shifting advertiser priorities, and the rising cost of print and delivery have led to the decision to end the print product, with the last edition scheduled for February 25, 2026. Coverage of Towson and nearby communities will continue only as an eNewspaper under The Baltimore Sun banner, available to Sun subscribers rather than as a standalone community paper.

The Towson Times has its roots in more than a century of community journalism in Towson, evolving through mergers and name changes that reflected the town’s growth from courthouse village to dense suburban center. The modern Towson Times title began in April 1968 as a weekly community newspaper and later became part of the Baltimore Sun Media Group, aligning it with the region’s dominant daily while preserving its neighborhood focus. Earlier Towson papers, including The Towson News (published from 1905 to 1909) and The Baltimore County Union (which began in 1865 and was later consolidated with The Towson News as the Union News), provided many of the traditions, beats, and readership that the Towson Times would inherit. Over the decades, the Times chronicled local government decisions, school news, small‑business openings, crime, sports, and community milestones, becoming a regular fixture on doorsteps from East Towson to Riderwood and Timonium. As ownership consolidated and print economics tightened, the paper gradually shifted more content to regional platforms, foreshadowing this year’s full move to digital‑only publication.

For many residents, the end of a dedicated Towson‑branded print newspaper represents more than a format change; it feels like a change in how the community sees itself. A weekly on the kitchen table or in the lobby of an apartment building stitched together neighborhoods that often interact only through traffic and commerce, offering a shared narrative about planning fights, school redistricting, local heroes, and Friday night football. While Sun subscribers will still be able to click into a Towson eEdition, the disappearance of the standalone masthead from newsstands and driveways may weaken the visibility of hyperlocal stories that rarely make regional front pages. For older readers and small advertisers who relied on print, the transition also raises access and equity questions about who gets to participate in local conversations when coverage moves behind a paywall and onto screens.​

Into this changing landscape steps the Towson Torch, a digital‑first outlet that has quickly positioned itself as a home for hyperlocal business, culture, and community news. Founded as an online publication and newsletter, the Torch focuses on Towson‑centric stories, particularly about small businesses, events, and the arts that often fall below the radar of larger regional media. By 2025 the outlet had already built an audience of thousands readers, most from Baltimore County, signaling strong demand for a locally rooted news source in the very community the Towson Times once dominated.​

The Torch’s growth drew the attention of Restyn, an Owings Mills–based technology company that acquired the publication in 2025 with plans to scale its model to other communities while keeping Towson as the flagship. Restyn’s leadership has explicitly argued that bigger outlets “are simply not covering so many of the hyper local stories about the people and businesses that live and work and play here in Towson,” positioning the Torch as both complement and corrective to the shrinking footprint of traditional print media. With the Towson Times leaving print and folding more fully into a regional digital platform, the Towson Torch now has an opportunity, and responsibility, to carry forward the tradition of neighborhood‑level reporting in a new form, one built around email inboxes, social feeds, and a renewed commitment to telling Towson’s own stories first.

Last month The Towson Torch launched a thought leadership and event series called the Towson Growth Summit, which they decided to focus on Workforce Development as it is a topic on everyone’s radar with respect to the jobs and the future of the local economy, especially with the dawn of AI and other generational changes.
Here is a recap of the Inaugural Event.
Inside Towson Growth Summit