Six kids, five days, two papers and one island
Earlier this month, the Durham VOICE and the Durham NGO Partners for Youth Opportunity teamed up with the Ocracoke Observer to bring six Durham inner-city teens to the Outer Banks island to spend the better part of a week … Read more
Feeling the “power of the press” in Roanoke Rapids
Time was, community newspapers had their offices right on Main Street, USA, with a newspaper press thundering in the back room like a locomotive train chained to the floor. Sadly, in the last 30 years we’ve seen all that change. … Read more
The Henderson Daily Dispatch: lifting up the community
As the reader can deduce from the name of this journal, I have a love-hate relationship with interstate highways. They get me to my mountain cabin quickly, dependably and predictably without a red light between Chapel Hill and Marion … Read more
Roadshow visits the Jacksonville Daily News
With the plethora of military bases across the Old North State, you can appreciate the challenges faced by local media when it comes to effectively covering their turf when those bases exist and operate as separate and restricted worlds, especially … Read more
The Roadshow goes to Pembroke, or, the continuing education of Jock “Locklear”
If you head east down the two-lane Blue Highway NC 74-Alternate out of Laurinburg, cross Shoe Heel Creek, hang a left on N. Chicken Road, pass over the black waters of the Lumber River and turn left again into … Read more
Investigative journalism: Into the deep end
“Rough weather makes good timber.” old Southern Appalachian expression When it comes to investigative journalism, Jessica Coates herself will be the first to tell you, she feels like she’s leaped into the deep end of the pool. Actually, the … Read more
In Which the Roadshow hits the Blue Highways of the Great State of Maine
One of the very best things about my job is the Community Journalism Summer Roadshow. Now in its 16th summer and having reached over 190 N.C. newspapers, the Roadshow takes me “From Murphy to Manteo” literally (the Cherokee Scout … Read more
A visit with Record & Landmark intern Ryan Wilusz
Sitting over a generous serving of meat loaf at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Statesville, Ryan Wilusz holds up his cell phone camera to display a beaming high school graduate in royal blue cap and gown holding her diploma and … Read more
Two newspapers; two worlds apart, but both serving their communities, such as they are
Fresh off my three-week stint working with community newspapers in China, and immediately after doing a Community Journalism Summer Roadshow workshop at a North Carolina group of papers, the globe-trotting ol’ perfesser finds himself asking: compare and contrast the … Read more
Welcome back to Boone, Mr. Joke
In which the Johnny Appleseed Summer Community Journalism Roadshow takes to the High Country of Ashe, Avery and Watauga Counties for a workshop at the five papers included in Mountain Times Publications. This is the 16th summer of these … Read more