About County News

County officials across the country prefer County News when it comes to information about county governments, according to independent research. The average County News' reader is a chief administrative officer who spends 30 minutes or more reading County News. They rate County News high for reliability, useability and style.

County News is read by nearly 40,000 top county officials across the country. There's no better and cost-efficient way to reach the county market than County News. 

• 2023 editorial schedule with material deadlines for County News​
• Information about advertising your job listings on the website and in County News
• Submit an insertion order for display advertising

All ads are priced for grayscale (black & white) print. Additional spot colors and full-color are available at extra charge. Please refer to the diagrams below for a visual layout of how your selected ad size would appear in County News.

Note that specifications for bleeds are not provided as all County News display ads are placed within page borders. Floating ads provided to us for placement will be placed within a 1 pt. border sized to listed specifications. This doesn’t affect the ad copy, but is necessary to separate the content from the rest of the page. Complete guidelines for artwork submission is provided below.

Ad Placement & Size

For more information, call County News at 202.942.4223 or e-mail mbarton@naco.org.

County News uses Adobe Creative Suite for layout and image editing. Although your image will more than likely be compatible with our software, clear, high-resolution images are required for good-quality printing. All images and photos in the newspaper are at 100% or below actual size ... enlarging images is discouraged. Please follow these guidelines when submitting digital photos and ads to County News.

• When submitting photos and bitmap images use high-resolution images (at least 180 DPI and sized to actual print specs) saved as JPGs or TIFs.
• Vector images created in Adobe Illustrator (or similar application) should be submitted in EPS or Illustrator (AI) format.
• Display ads may be submitted as high-resolution PDFs formatted for printing or press.

DO NOT submit ...

• images embedded in a Word or Powerpoint Document file;
• low-resolution PDF documents formatted for screen viewing;
• images copied from the Web (unless the downloaded images are high-resolution and ‘for print’); and
• photos taken with smartphones that have been treated with filters (such as Instagram).

Please note: Images used on Web sites typically are low resolution (72 DPI) and will not reproduce well on a printed page. GIFs in particular, are saved with various degrees of color-loss. WE CANNOT USE THEM in printed material.

If you need additional assistance, please contact County News to determine other possible options at 202.942.4223.

For digital cameras, please make sure they are set set at high-resolution. Most cameras will have large and fine quality settings available. Download original image files taken with smartphones before submitting them. Low-resolution snap shots cannot be accepted. Smartphone images sent via texting or email tend to be inadequate, and any photos with special effect filters applied to them are unusable.

Follow the guidelines as mentioned above except for the resolution requirements. NACo publications use 200 DPI as their minimum resolution.

One point to remember is when submitting registered logos and trademarks: print requirements of these images vary from owner to owner. To ensure accuracy and legal use, contact the owner of the logo. Their Marketing or Public Relations department should have a print-ready logo available.

Please contact Leon Lawrence III, NACo Design Director at 202.942.4250.

Editorial Guidelines

County News Welcomes Articles about County Government

If you are interested in submitting an article for publication, your first step is to call or e-mail the editor with a brief synopsis or outline of the article. The editor’s direct line is 202.942.4223; e-mail address is mbarton@naco.org.

We are interested in articles that address issues of concern to county officials or county government. Since we are a national publication, articles should have as wide an appeal as possible. We prefer articles of 500-800 words, but longer articles may be considered depending on the subject matter. If a story idea has merit, we will ask that you submit it via e-mail to mbarton@naco.org.

If you have a tip for "News from the Nation’s Counties," please forward to mbarton@naco.org​​​​.