The Banner announced it will take its award-winning journalism into Prince George’s County this spring, continuing its ambition to serve readers across Maryland.

Banner CEO Bob Cohn shared the news in an internal email to staff on Thursday:

I am happy to announce we are accelerating our plans to expand The Banner’s coverage into Prince George’s County. Starting this spring, we’ll be putting reporters on the ground in this vital part of the state, focusing on local news in and around key towns including Bowie, Laurel, Greenbelt and College Park. 

As you’ll recall, we said last year that we saw our move into Montgomery County as a test case for expansion beyond the Baltimore region and, if Montgomery panned out, we’d go into Prince George’s.  

The evidence shows we are filling a real need in Montgomery, with 8,000 paid subscribers and more than 550 stories published since launch last September. Montgomery now accounts for more than 10 percent of our total subscribers, about the same as Howard and Anne Arundel counties. Our team there, led by Zuri Berry, is covering a range of stories from government and business to education and food, and is committed to the kind of accountability journalism we are known for in Baltimore.  

With this progress in mind, it makes a lot of sense for us to speed up our entry into Prince  

George’s. It is, with nearly a million residents, the second-most populous county in the state. It’s home to tens of thousands of federal workers and has robust businesses across defense, aerospace, higher ed and life sciences. But, like Montgomery, it is woefully underserved by local news sources – and now more than ever. 

Prince George’s represents a key puzzle piece in The Banner’s ambition to serve readers across Maryland. With this move, we’ll be covering the six most populous jurisdictions in the state (Baltimore City, plus the counties of Montgomery, Prince George’s, Baltimore, Anne Arundel and Howard), a swath across Central Maryland that accounts for more than 70 percent of the state’s residents.  

We’re starting work on this immediately, following the launch playbook we created for Montgomery last summer. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hiring a small corps of reporters and editors, and they’ll work closely with the Montgomery team as we explore the best way to serve communities in the Washington region. In the meantime, we’ve set up a page on TheBanner.com to welcome readers to the new operation and encourage them to follow our launch plans. 

This is an exciting moment for The Banner. We’re in position to seize this opportunity due to your hard work and entrepreneurial energy. Thank you for making this possible.  

Bob