Local news departures hit home

NC newsrooms lose not just positions, but people

The Charlotte Observer and News & Observer will bid farewell starting this week to 18 veteran journalists who accepted early retirement packages offered by parent company McClatchy.

Independent journalist Barry Yeoman shared a partial list, and some reflections, in a series of posts on Twitter. Some are familiar names who've anchored key coverage in North Carolina on important policy topics, culture or community, or helped us see the world with their photographs; others are editors or in other behind-the-bylines roles that make up the support beams of a good newsroom.

"A terrain can absorb 12 inches of rain over a year. It's a lot harder to absorb that much rain in an hour," Yeoman observed in one tweet.

So many departures all at once have stirred new alarm about the newspaper industry's continuing downsizing and the obvious losses for North Carolinians. They also remind us that the heart of local news is human beings: It's for, about and by people of a particular place, a collective effort to understand and support the bigger idea of community

Those who are retiring, like those who remain in our local newsrooms, are neighbors, friends and community leaders in their own right, and North Carolinians have gained not just from their journalism skills and experience but also from their individual and collective commitment to our state.

What happens next? News keeps going, and so do the best journalists. Robyn Tomlin, McClatchy's regional editor for the Carolinas, said The N&O and Observer will be able to fill some positions, with a few postings expected this week.

As they shared their own announcements, several of the departing McClatchy staffers urged their supporters to subscribe to The N&O and Observer. That's where we all can help: If we value good journalism and want more of it, we can make the case that it's worth funding — as subscribers, donors or enthusiastic evangelists for newsrooms producing the coverage we seek.

Some of McClatchy's departing staffers will take new jobs, mostly outside journalism; others will retire. Like thousands of others who've left local newsrooms by choice or layoff over the past decade, they join communities that still need high-quality, reliable news and information.

As a former colleague of several and a fan of all, I'll add this: Thank you.

Bulletin board

Events++, CDS essay contest deadline, Carolina AND Duke win

If you're in the Charlotte area, spread the word on this free, public open government training Friday from 3-5 p.m. at Queens University, led by NC Press Association General Counsel Amanda Martin. Email Phil Lucey, phil@ncpress.com, for more information.
The NC College Media Awards for 2018 were announced last weekend. Find the full list of outstanding work from young journalists (from hard news to commentary and poetry) here.
Both teams won in the Daily Tar Heel-Duke Chronicle challenge, an imaginative college media fundraiser tied to the Feb. 20 college basketball rivalry. (We know who won that one) The DTH came out on top with just shy of $30,000 in donations; the Chron raised a little under $25,000. Ad revenue from the collaborative print edition on game day boosted the total by thousands more each.
Nonfiction writers: Deadline has been extended until this Friday, March 1, for the Center for Documentary Studies' Documentary Essay Prize. The prize recognizes the best of short-form documentary work in photography and writing, with this year focused on writing. Work from the past two years may be entered; the winner receives $3,000 and placement in digital publications and archives from CDS, which is based at Duke University. Read the FAQs and how to enter.
Register now for Sunshine Day on March 11, a full day of training and discussion of North Carolina free press and open government issues for journalists, lawyers, public officials and others who support transparency and access, at Elon University. The program is hosted by the NC Open Government Coalition and its Sunshine Center at Elon.
The NC Press Association 2019 annual convention is scheduled for March 20-22 at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley. Find the schedule of events here and register here.
Carolina Public Press will host three public forums in March tied to a multi-outlet collaborative journalism project exploring sexual assault prosecution in North Carolina. CPP, the nonprofit investigative newsroom based in Asheville, has been reporting in collaboration with The Fayetteville Observer, The News & Observer, Winston-Salem Journal, WLOS News 13, WRAL-TV, and WUNC North Carolina Public Radio. Evening forums are scheduled for March 19 at Studio 215 in Fayetteville, March 20 at Wake Tech's South Campus in Raleigh and March 26 at Central Piedmont Community College in Huntersville. Click the links for details, including registration.
ICYMI, an evening forum and half-day lunch and workshop in Charlotte March 14-15 will address a question many share: Can we find constructive ways to disagree and discuss differences? Journalist and author Amanda Ripley will be the featured guest; the events at Queens University will be participatory and are sponsored by local and national nonprofit organizations. Queens and the NC Humanities Council are presenting the forum and workshop. Register here and read Ripley here on how journalism can improve by embracing complexity.
Deadline is March 15 for high school students to apply for the 2019 Chuck Stone Program for Diversity in Education and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill. Students who will be seniors in the 2019-20 academic year can apply for 12 slots in the fully funded one-week program, which includes classroom and hands-on multimedia work. The program is scheduled for July 7-11 at the School of Media & Journalism. Application link here.
The Charlotte Observer and the national News Literacy Project will host a day-long "NewsLitCamp" April 9 at the Observer. Middle- and high-school teachers and librarians from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools can apply and get a continuing education credit. The day's program includes training and discussion on journalism and press freedom, misinformation and how to determine credibility of information and more. Full details and registration link here.

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Starting up: Andrew Dunn's Daily Standard

(Note: Starting up will be an occasional feature in NC Local highlighting new efforts to provide public-interest news and information: nonprofit, for-profit or spinoff. Send suggestions or tips to melanie@localnewslab.org)

Andrew Dunn, who launched Longleaf Politics in January 2018, recently added a companion site called The Daily Standard. Dunn, a former Charlotte Observer and StarNews journalist, learned a lot about building

a news business and audience as head of news content for the Charlotte Agenda for more than three years. I caught up with him recently by telephone to learn more about the Standard and Longleaf Politics.

The startup: The Daily Standard, which takes its name and inspiration from NC political and newspaper history and the legacy of William Woods Holden, a 19th century journalist and North Carolina governor.

The business model: Both services are for-profit. Dunn produces them solo and on his own time, balancing a full-time job and family life, and is working to find the path to profit. He sees Longleaf Politics evolving as a service (including a political consultancy) offering news, discussion and guidance for "people who live and breathe North Carolina politics," and the Standard operating as a news site (so far, short items, summaries and links) serving a broader audience for political news, meaning higher page views and more digital advertising.

What Dunn sees as his sites' distinctive value in the competitive political news field: On the Longleaf Politics "About" page, Dunn addresses an audience of "savvy consumers frustrated by how the state's dominant media cover politics." He says he's learning more as his audience grows, "but I am kind of up front on my site and on my about page that I am writing from a somewhat right-of-center perspective. The phrase I use is the 'reasonable right of center," and I think that’s a niche that’s been underutilized."

His hopes for success: "I'd love to be able to build the audience and the readership to the point I could hire reporters and turn it into a digital-native political news site. I think it's going to take a long time. It might not work, (but) I want to build something sustainable."