The Democrat-Herald covers the cities of Albany, Lebanon, and Sweet Home, Oregon, as well as the towns of Jefferson, Halsey, Tangent, Harrisburg, Brownsville, and Shedd.

The Oregon Democrat was carried forward by a new publisher, Pat Malone, but the Confederate-sympathizing weekly ran into trouble with the Republican keepers of the postal system and on April 30, 1862, the paper was banned from the US Mail for its political line.

[1] The dual partisan newspapers battled for market share for nearly half a century until on February 24, 1925, the dominant Albany Democrat absorbed its younger rival.

In 1919 the Albany Democrat was purchased by local school superintendent William L. Jackson and his business partner, Ralph R.

[5] In 1970, the company purchased the Lebanon Express from Robert Hayden and the Ashland Daily Tidings from Edd Rountree.

[6] It also purchased the Western Stamp Collector Newspaper in 1976,[7] along with four weekly papers in 1977 (Gresham Outlook, Sandy Post, Newport News Times and Lincoln County Leader).

[1] Disney immediately began to divest itself of the newspapers acquired in the merger, with the Democrat-Herald sold to Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa in 1998 — a media company which already owned the Corvallis Gazette-Times, located approximately 10 miles away.