The Laker and Lutz News are free, weekly community newspapers delivered every Wednesday to homes and businesses in the suburban north Tampa communities of Lutz, Odessa, Land O’ Lakes, Wesley Chapel, Zephyrhills, Dade City and San Antonio.

We publish 44,450 papers every week, with 85 percent delivered to homes, and the remaining to over 350 business locations and newspaper boxes. We have an enviable readership of 81 percent, making our papers some of the best-read community papers in the country.

Because 8 out of 10 households in our market area read The Laker and Lutz News, national retailers such as Publix, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, Walmart, Michaels and Bealls Outlet insert their weekly advertising circulars in our papers.

Our two-section newspaper, which is the same broad size as a daily newspaper, has exclusive local content. Our editorial team consists of professional journalists who write informative and timely stories, and commentary about our area’s growth and development, schools, health care, community groups, businesses, and youth and adult sports and recreation.

The quality of our work is recognized every year with numerous awards from prestigious industry groups, including the Florida Press Association, Community Papers of Florida and Association of Free Community Newspapers.

The Circulation Verification Council, an independent auditing firm, annually verifies our circulation and zip code detail of the homes and businesses we deliver to. It also conducts a readership study that identifies our readers’ demographics by age, household income, education and other measurements. This study also reports that 76 percent of our readers frequently purchase products and services from ads in our papers.

The Laker and Lutz News are independently owned by Publisher Diane Kortus, a resident of Land O’ Lakes. The Laker has been published in Pasco County since 1981. In Hillsborough County, The Lutz News has published since 1964.