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

  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

  “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

  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

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

  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

  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

  A collection of images from the three-week teaching junket of a latter-day Johnny Appleseed trying to spread the word of Community Journalism in China, May 2016. All photos by Jock Lauterer, otherwise known to the Chinese as “Mr. Joke.” … Read more

In my final hours here in Chongqing, I want to post my closing set of images from this fine old city, where Ernest Hemingway once visited, where the WWII capital of Chungking was located so as to be far from … Read more

The further adventures of Jock Lauterer, aka “Mr. Joke,” who is teaching in China this summer. The curious variation of “Jock” is due to the fact that my name is very difficult to pronounce for the Chinese, so I am … Read more