News industry travails pose challenges for Virginia’s specialty papers
This story is part of a series highlighting stories from the front lines of local news reporting in Virginia. It is presented as part of the Virginia Local News Summit, co-hosted with the …

An African-American weekly carries on a proud legacy
The Richmond Free Press, an African-American weekly newspaper, was established in 1992, but if it seems much older it may be because its late founder, Raymond H. Boone, was at the center of covering the struggle for civil rights for half a century.

A Korean-language daily bridges the gap for those new to America
Five mornings a week, the large and growing Korean-American community in Northern Virginia and the Washington metro area can get the news in their native language thanks to the Korea Times, a 52-year-old daily whose Los Angeles parent also publishes local editions in other major U.S. cities.

The struggle to get a newspaper out with two reporters
“The daily grind of putting out a small community newspaper is an enormous effort and a huge sacrifice,” said Emily Oaks, former editor of the Culpeper Star-Exponent.

Soft news sells ads in a rural county
Danny Clark takes exception to the State of Local News project’s judgment that King and Queen County is a news desert. “We’ve had a local paper for the last 33 years,” said the publisher of the Country Courier, a twice-a-month publication filled with feel-good features and ads. But the State of Local News counts only dailies and weeklies, and it assesses whether they publish enough hard news, including covering local government and school boards.

‘We don’t want to shut down’
Norman Styer has devoted his career to reporting news in Loudoun County, an outer Washington suburb that has quintupled in population over 30 years and is now Virginia’s third-most populous county. He signed on as Leesburg Today’s first full-time reporter in 1989 and was editor-in-chief in 2015 when rival Leesburg Times-Mirror purchased it and shut it down the next day.
VPM Fills News Holes Across Central Virginia, Shenandoah
VPM, the public broadcaster in Richmond, calls itself “Virginia’s Home for Public Media,” but not long ago it had only a skeleton news staff that basically was just reading news briefs, according to Elliott Richardson, the current news editor. “It was effectively three people.”
WHRO Builds an Endowment for News and Investigative Reporting
WHRO Public Media began broadcasting educational television shows in Norfolk and Hampton in 1961 and went on to expand in reach and capabilities through four television and five radio stations.
Nonprofits’ Sole Mission: Helping Local Papers Survive
Two weeklies in rural counties near the Blue Ridge struggled to get by with staffs too small to cover all the issues important to residents’ lives. Then they got help from two tax-exempt community organizations created to save local journalism.

Virginia Mercury: Scrutinizing Richmond’s Impact
The Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a national network of nonprofit, digital news enterprises stretching across 33 states that relies on philanthropy and other donors and doesn’t run ads or accept corporate donations or underwriting.
Charlottesville Tomorrow Seeks to Unite Community
The site was launched in 2005 by civic activists to provide nonpartisan information on land use, public education, transportation and other issues to “protect and build upon the distinctive character of the Charlottesville-Albemarle area.”
Cardinal News: Covering What Matters to Readers
Former employees of the Roanoke Times launched Cardinal News in September 2021, setting out to fill gaping holes in news coverage of rural Southwest and Southside Virginia from the Appalachians across the Piedmont.