Nicholas F. Benton

Who is Nicholas F. Benton?

Nicholas F. Benton is the founder, owner, and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, a weekly merchandiser distributed in Falls Church, Virginia, and in parts of Fairfax County, Arlington County, and Washington D.C.

A native of California, Benton earned a degree in English from Westmont College in 1966, where he had an athletic scholarship. After college he was a reporter and sports writer for the Santa Barbara News-Press. He obtained a master of divinity degree in 1969 from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley. He became a contributor to the alternative Berkeley Barb, helped found the Berkeley Gay Liberation Front and wrote the first editorial for the newspaper Gay Sunshine.

Benton worked for the Lyndon LaRouche organization from 1974 until the late 1980s, first as a political organizer, and later as the Washington D.C. bureau chief and White House Correspondent for LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review. In 2007, Benton wrote that he had left the LaRouche movement in the 1980s.

Benton founded the Falls Church News-Press in March 1991, and in July 2010 celebrated the periodical's 1,000th edition. He has served twice as the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, been named Falls Church's “Pillar of the Community” twice and “Business Person of the Year” once, and had his enterprise named “Business of the Year” twice. He has authored a weekly national affairs column in his periodical since 1997.