NewsA Weekly Thrives at the Bottom of the Middle Peninsula
Family ties run deep at the Gloucester-Mathews Gazette-Journal. When nonagenarian John Warren Cooke died in 2009 after 55 years as president and publisher, the former Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates was succeeded by his daughter, Elsa Cooke Verbyla, who had been the editor and a reporter at the weekly since 1976. Its main office and printing plant have sat on Gloucester Courthouse’s Main Street for 75 years and its roots go back more than a century.
NewsStill Keeping Watch
The biggest story Brian Carlton has tracked since becoming editor of the Farmville Herald is one that might come as a surprise to most Virginians: the possibility that mining companies might resume digging for gold as was once commonplace in the 1800s and even into the 1940s.
NewsCreating a ‘Worthy’ Community Newspaper
When Tom Lappas graduated from the University of Richmond with a journalism degree in 1998, his dream job was to become a sportswriter at a daily. But he also wanted to stay in Richmond and wound up at a community paper in nearby Henrico County, Virginia’s sixth largest county by population (333,000). Something clicked, and three years later he left to launch his own twice-a-month paper, the Henrico Citizen, and convinced three fellow reporters to join him.
NewsA Nonprofit Digs Deeper into News Online
Six years out of college, Sarah Vogelsong made $11 an hour when she landed her first newspaper job at the Caroline Progress in 2014. The minimum wage in the Commonwealth was $7.25 at that time. She left in 2016, two years before the paper closed.
NewsAs Newspapers Struggle, Local News is Harder to Find in Virginia
By Christopher Connell for Foothills Forum It is, unfortunately, old news. Virginia’s newspapers, the single biggest source of local news, face unprecedented challenges, with their readers, revenues and staffs steadily …
NewsA Small-Town Success Story
Anne Adams publishes The Recorder in Monterey, Virginia, where local news is paramount. “I only get into state and national coverage when it affects my folks here,” Adams says.
NewsA County Left Without a Newspaper
Greg Glassner, a retired journalist who worked at six newspapers over a 42-year career, reflects on the loss of local news in Caroline County, VA.
NewsMixing Small Town Politics and Journalism
Billy Coleburn, former mayor of Blackstone, Virginia and owner of the town’s newspaper, The Courier-Record , shares how he created a career in both local news and politics.
NewsAn African-American Paper Endures in Southwest Virginia
Claudia A. Whitworth was 18 when she began working with her father on the Roanoke Tribune in 1945. Today, at age 95, she’s shepherding the paper into a new era of local news.
NewsNo Reporters on Staff
Lifelong newspaperman Carlos Santos, who purchased the weekly Fluvanna Review in 2009, is fighting to preserve local journalism in his community.
NewsSave the Small Sums
In 1865, the Freedman’s Bank was written into law by President Lincoln to help newly freed enslaved people save money and buy land. But the bank collapsed less than 10 years after it was established – throwing many Black Americans into financial ruin. Justene Hill Edwards says the racial wealth gap can be traced back to the rise and fall of the Freedman’s Bank.
NewsOur Biggest Technological Challenges Require Humanists to Find the Answers
Op-Ed by Sylvester Johnson – I often ponder the future of the humanities in higher education. Humanities and liberal arts departments have long been compared to STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) programs and found wanting. Ironically, the rise of technology and the success of STEM education are creating a steep demand for humanist leaders in every sector.
