Matthew Sayle

Matthew “Matt” Sayle is the owner and publisher of The Georgia Gazette, a Richmond Hill, Georgia site that aggregates county jail booking photos and has been both the subject of a local TV investigation and a public defender of his own practices.

Based in Richmond Hill, GA

Org The Georgia Gazette (Georgia Gazette LLC)

Role Owner & Publisher

Notable work and positions

The Georgia Gazette (Georgia Gazette LLC) — Owner and Publisher (listed as Managing Director in Better Business Bureau records)

Biography

Matthew “Matt” Sayle is the owner and publisher of The Georgia Gazette, a Richmond Hill, Georgia-based website that publishes police booking photographs (“mugshots”) obtained through Georgia Open Records Act requests to sheriff's offices in roughly 80 Georgia counties, organized into county-level pages such as its Chatham County crime and courts section. The site describes itself as an independent news agency not affiliated with or endorsed by any law enforcement or government agency, and states it presumes subjects innocent until proven guilty in its coverage. Georgia Gazette LLC was registered with the Georgia Secretary of State effective January 14, 2021, with a principal address in Richmond Hill, Georgia; the Better Business Bureau's profile for the company lists a start date of January 10, 2020, and names Sayle as managing director.

In a July 2023 investigation, WSB-TV Channel 2 Atlanta reporter Justin Gray examined The Georgia Gazette's practice of posting mugshots regardless of the severity of a charge or a case's outcome, including for people never convicted of a crime, and reported that the site places its own watermark on the booking photographs. The report stated that the address Sayle had listed with the Georgia Secretary of State's office was the location of an unrelated business, a smoothie shop, and that Sayle declined an on-camera interview, instead providing a written statement asserting that the site complies with Georgia's mugshot-removal law and operates a “second chance” policy of removing some bookings beyond what the law requires. The same report noted that Sayle was convicted of a DUI in 2010, a record WSB-TV obtained through a public-records request.

Sayle later published a signed editorial on The Georgia Gazette disputing several points in the WSB-TV report. He wrote that the address in question was a small suite his company rented in a building whose main tenant was a smoothie shop, and that WSB-TV's reporter visited a house that was not in fact his residence. He also wrote that the company has been sued multiple times over its reporting but that none of the suits succeeded, that he received death threats over the site's coverage, and that The Georgia Gazette does not rely on legal-notice or advertiser revenue in order to preserve its editorial independence. He confirmed the 2010 DUI conviction WSB-TV reported, writing that his name and mugshot were published in a local paper at the time.

Career highlights

1. Georgia Gazette LLC incorporation, 2021Formally registered the company with the Georgia Secretary of State, effective Jan. 14, 2021; Better Business Bureau records list the underlying business as operating since January 2020.

2. Multi-county mugshot operationBuilt The Georgia Gazette into an aggregator of jail booking photos across roughly 80 Georgia counties, using state open-records requests, in a market subject to a 2021 Georgia law restricting fee-based photo removal.

3. WSB-TV investigation and public rebuttal, 2023–2026Became the subject of a Channel 2 Atlanta “2 Investigates” report on mugshot-website practices in July 2023, and later published a signed editorial on his own site disputing specific findings, including the characterization of his registered business address.

The Georgia Gazette
Website: thegeorgiagazette.com
Publisher's editorial: “Why I Started The Georgia Gazette”