Rhino Times

The newspaper published two of the controversial Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in February, 2006.[8]

In July 2009, the paper won a $25,000 judgement for punitive damages against an Arkansas-based Ku Klux Klan group and its leader Thomas Robb.[9] The case was filed in 2006 when the paper alleged the Klan inserted its fliers into Times newspapers, which then went to customers.[10] The Klan counter-sued for defamation, but lost.[10] In addition to punitive damages, the paper reportedly received the nation's first permanent injunction against the KKK,[10] barring them from using the paper to distribute their literature in the future.

In June 2011, a controversy was created when the Rhino Times published a cartoon by Geof Brooks that featured two African American men in orange prison jumpsuits, in the front yards of what appears to be two suburban homes.[11] The first character states, "Geez! Dey builds a brand new jail wit' three squares [square meals] an' cable...", and the second character concludes, "And dey puts us on house arrest so's dey can pays for it!"[12]

Editor John Hammer apologized in the next edition of the paper, claiming that the cartoonist had intended the prisoners to be caucasian;[13][14] in his apology, Hammer did not address why the cartoon had been colorized as it was, nor the failure of the editors to catch the mistake. The Greensboro News & Record reported that Hammer called Guilford County Commissioners Chairman Melvin "Skip" Alston to apologize for the cartoon.[11] Alston commented that he felt the cartoonist "might have had some racial intent".[11]

In January 2015, Editor John Hammer published a story claiming two Irish tourists were accosted, treated roughly and arrested by Greensboro police while trying to take photos in the city's Bicentennial Garden. The story, including interviews with the couple and details of their arrest, was a fabrication. In response to controversy over the story, Hammer claimed the piece was intended as satire, though the publication did not in any way label it as such. In the next week's issue, Hammer apologized to readers for not clearly marking the piece as satire and "to the police for maligning them."[15]