Tag: daily progress

Categories
News

Going it alone: Charlottesville Tomorrow dumps Progress, broadens mission

Giles Morris, Charlottesville Tomorrow executive director, says coverage of government meetings has changed since August 2017. The online publication wants to move toward more in-depth coverage of community issues. Eze Amos

When Charlottesville Tomorrow began in 2005, it was one of the first nonprofit, local news orgs in the country. Its mission was so narrow—land use, community design, transportation—that another local weekly called it a “growth watchdog.”

The online publication broadened its name recognition and reach when it began sharing content with the Daily Progress in 2009, a liaison that lasted 10 years, until executive director Giles Morris announced June 24 that its partnership with the Progress was over, and CTom was broadening its mission: “Charlottesville Tomorrow delivers in-depth reporting and analysis that improves local decision-making. We seek to expand civic engagement to foster a vibrant, inclusive, and interdependent community.”

It wasn’t just one thing that caused the break up with the Progress, says Morris, a former editor of C-VILLE Weekly. The once-heralded collaboration had survived multiple editors, publishers, and owners of the newspaper, most recently BH Media, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, whose CEO Warren Buffett famously declared for-profit print newspapers “toast.”

Lately, “the Progress was only running about half our stuff,” says Morris. “I don’t think it was working as well.” And he’s not worried about losing the print outlet. “We’ve always been digital.”

In the year or so since Morris became executive director, he’s doubled the news staff to four, and hired former DP associate city editor Elliott Robinson to be editor. He wants to run longer, more in-depth pieces. In the past, says Morris, “we just wrote meetings reports.” The daily news cycle doesn’t allow time for a reporter to call nine sources, he says. “As a nonprofit, we can be very intentional.”

“It was their call,” says DP editor Aaron Richardson. “I wish them every success.”

UVA associate professor Christopher Ali, who specializes in local media, says he was surprised by the move. “This was one of the most innovative partnerships in digital news.”

Working with the Progress guaranteed visibility for Charlottesville Tomorrow, he says. “I’d be interested in seeing their strategy for visibility.”

Ali is “more worried about the Daily Progress than I am Charlottesville Tomorrow. It is really difficult to be a small market paper.”

He suggests with the loss of CTom content, the Progress “double down on local coverage” and don’t substitute AP stories. “That’s the one thing local newspapers can offer.”

Charlottesville Tomorrow was founded by hedge fund manager Michael Bills and Southern Environmental Law Center founder Rick Middleton at a time that growth in Albemarle County was a big concern for rural landscape lovers. Its wealthy board included Renee Grisham, wife of mega-author John, and the nonprofit was supported by donors like Ted Weschler, a top stock picker for Buffett and an investor in C-VILLE Weekly’s parent company.

The change in mission came slowly over the past year since Morris was hired. “The language in our original mission didn’t sound like where we want to be.”

Land use and public education have been “pillars of our coverage,” he says. “We’re not going to abandon that. If the community wants public health or housing coverage, we’re going to raise the money to do it well.”

“I consider it more of an evolution than a change in mission,” says Bills. “We’re still trying to fill the local news coverage the community needs to make decisions.”

Much like listener-supported public radio, Charlottesville Tomorrow will continue to need donors. It reported revenues of $460,000 in 2017, and in the $400,000 ballpark the two years prior, according to its IRS 990s.

Morris wants people to sign up for emails, which will include fundraising pitches. “We want more readers. We want more readers to be donors,” he says. And CTom will continue to apply for grants, such as the ones it receives from the Knight Foundation.

The events of August 12, 2017, also factored into the changes Charlottesville Tomorrow is making, with more people covering local government meetings, says Morris, and more awareness of racial inequity.

Morris says he wasn’t pointing fingers specifically at the Progress when he wrote, “Today, Charlottesville is a place where we’re all questioning and challenging the inherited models that have reinforced harmful power dynamics.”

But he does acknowledge the role community newspapers had in supporting segregation while covering up “the corrosive injustice of racism in the South.”

When he came to Charlottesville in 2011, he says he was “unprepared to cover race and equality in this place.” While at C-VILLE, Morris had to deal with a protest in 2013 after the paper published a racist comment in a section called “The Rant.”

Says Morris, “In journalism, we share a responsibility.”

Morris and Robinson will be conducting a series of listening sessions in the coming months to learn how locals want Charlottesville Tomorrow’s guiding values of “equity, truth and community” put into place.

City spokesman Brian Wheeler was CTom’s first executive director. “As someone who was involved in the birth of the organization, I am excited to see its current leadership continuing to innovate, to launch a next generation news website, and to serve the community’s critical information needs.”

Categories
News

The fine print: Daily Progress subscription prices skyrocket

Though a subscription to Charlottesville’s daily newspaper will nearly double in July, it’s not alone. Newspapers prices across the country are surging as media becomes more concentrated online.

Print is dead. Print is dying. Newspapers are “toast.” We’ve all heard some iteration of this, and it makes print journalists think about jumping ship.

But as more media becomes concentrated online, and local and national newspaper prices soar to make up for a loss in advertising revenue, at least one media expert is encouraging readers to opt for ink.

“Newspapers have become what one scholar in England called ‘keystone media,’ because they’re the ones dictating the news agenda for the community,” says UVA Department of Media Studies Assistant Professor Christopher Ali. “If you’re interested in local news, you gotta keep picking up the newspaper.”

That’s becoming harder across the country—and here in Charlottesville—because of surging price tags. While C-VILLE Weekly is a free publication, and Charlottesville Tomorrow provides free local news online, the cost of a Daily Progress print subscription has almost doubled from this time last year, according to at least one subscriber’s bill. It showed rates jumping from approximately $265 for the print and online product in 2018 to $478 per year, starting in July.

Publisher Peter Yates did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but in a letter to subscribers he wrote, “To continue to produce high quality journalism, in print and online, we must adjust our rates to reflect the cost of doing business while continuing to offer the lowest rate possible.”

The Progress is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, a $210 billion company owned by business magnate and billionaire Warren Buffett—who was the one who recently said that newspapers are “toast” and “going to disappear.”

The Daily Progress obviously isn’t alone. A NiemanLab report published in late January found that the cost of newspapers has more than doubled from a decade ago, and also notes that if publishers didn’t establish the more-than-substantial price hikes, “they’d employ even fewer journalists and be in even worse shape today.”

An annual seven-day print subscription to The New York Times will now set you back more than $1,000 in most of the country, and The Boston Globe comes in at $750. Folks who want to read a physical copy of The Washington Post every day are doling out approximately $650 a year, according to NiemanLab.

The organization also cited a recently-published paper in Journalism Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal, which studied 25 large American newspapers between 2008 and 2016, and found that seven-day print subscriptions now cost an average of $510 a year, and subscribers are paying an additional $293 on average to have their papers delivered.

“What I’m seeing is the need for a lot of experimentation around pricing options,” says Ali. “There’s no cookie-cutter solution.”

Should papers lower the prices to retain readers? Says Ali, “I don’t think they can.”

In his work, he’s observed news organizations testing paywall options, exploring web hosting in smaller communities, and hosting events for which they sell tickets to generate new revenue.

He calls it a “double-edged sword,” because while newspapers are exploring other funding as a means to survive, they’re also scaling back on their local coverage.

“I think people would be willing to pay a little bit more if the coverage was robust, but it’s not,” says Ali. “A lot of [the money] is going to keeping the lights on, but I’d love to see newspapers double down on the unique aspects they can offer,” which, in his opinion, means “being local.”

For example, no one’s picking up the Progress to read the front-page Associated Press story about what’s going on in Moscow, he says. “We read The Daily Progress because we want to know what’s going on in Charlottesville.”

Categories
News

In brief: City digs in, winemaker dies, rioters plead, and more

CRB member Rosia Parker wondered why police Chief RaShall Brackney couldn’t find time on her reportedly empty calendar to meet.

Truth in scheduling: Progress joins City v. Civilian Review Board fray

A Daily Progress reporter was a topic of discussion during public comment at the May 6 City Council meeting, following Nolan Stout’s story earlier that day that police Chief RaShall Brackney’s calendar seemed to contradict claims that she was unavailable to meet with the Police Civilian Review Board.

CRB member Rosia Parker thanked Stout for his reporting, while Mayor Nikuyah Walker blamed Stout for the escalating tension between the chief and the review board. Councilor Wes Bellamy said he had “personal issues” with the article, and defended Brackney and her calendar. Police gadfly Jeff Fogel yelled at Bellamy to “not punk out,” and Bellamy replied, “You’re the last one to tell me to punk out.”

The latest outburst follows a bizarre April 26 city press release that accused a CRB member of lying about Brackney refusing to meet with the board. That was followed by an even weirder April 30 retraction of the falsehood allegation, which instead pointed the finger at the Progress’ reporting. The paper stands by its story.

And in the latest deepening of trenches in the war of words, city spokesman Brian Wheeler told Stout his Freedom of Information Act request for emails between Brackney or her secretary and City Council or CRB members, and emails between councilors and CRB members, would cost $3,000 and require a $700 deposit. Wheeler refused to break down the costs, which are unprecedented in C-VILLE Weekly’s experience with FOIA.

Megan Rhyne with Virginia Coalition for Open Government says this is only the second time she’s seen a local government refuse to detail its alleged costs, and tells the DP, “I don’t think it’s very transparent.”

Quote of the week

“I believe we have more than enough mandatory minimum sentences—more than 200—in Virginia state code.” Governor Ralph Northam on why he won’t sign any more such bills, which he calls punitive, discriminatory, and expensive

In brief

Carbon friendlier

Charlottesville’s carbon emissions per household—11.2 tons annually—are a ton above the national average. City Council voted unanimously at its May 6 meeting to approve a climate action plan that includes a goal of 45 percent carbon emissions reduction by 2030, and total carbon neutrality by 2050.

Wine pioneer dies

David King. file photo

 

David King, patriarch of King Family Vineyards, died May 2 after what the family calls a “hard-fought” battle with cancer. The 64-year-old was a past chair of the Virginia Wine Board, a polo player, pilot, and reserve deputy with the Albemarle County Sheriff’s Office search and rescue division. The family will host a celebration of life on June 14 at their Crozet family farm from 7:30-9:30pm.

Rioters plead

The last two members of the now-defunct California white supremacist group Rise Above Movement, who traveled to Charlottesville for the August 2017 Unite the Right rally to brawl with counterprotesters, pleaded guilty May 3 in U.S. District Court. RAM founder Benjamin Drake Daley, 26, from Redondo Beach, and Michael Paul Miselis, 30, from Lawndale, each pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to riot. Fellow RAMmers Cole White and Thomas Gillen previously pleaded guilty.

The Guys

Unrelated Bridget Guy and Kyle Guy got top UVA athletics honors at the Hoos Choice Awards May 1. Bridget, from Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is an all-American pole vaulter who was undefeated this season. Indianapolis-native Kyle was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Final Four, in part for his sangfroid in firing off three free throws in a row to beat Auburn 63-62.

Flaggers appeal

Confederate battle flag-loving Virginia Flaggers were in circuit court May 2 to appeal a Louisa Board of Zoning Appeals decision that the 120-foot pole they raised on I-64 in March 2018 to fly the “Charlottesville I-64 Spirit of Defiance Battle Flag” exceeded the county’s maximum of 60 feet. The judge has not yet issued a ruling.

Cruel and unusual

The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Virginia’s death row inmates, who spend years alone in a small cell for 23 to 24 hours a day. The justices said the inmates face a “substantial risk” of serious psychological and emotional harm in violation of the Eighth Amendment in the case filed by local attorney Steve Rosenfield.

UVA student sentenced

When former UVA student Cayden Jacob Dalton drunkenly abducted and strangled his ex-girlfriend in August 2018, she told the judge “there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to die.” Now, he’ll serve one and a half years for the crime, with the rest of his 15-year sentence suspended.

Show us the money

With the first campaign finance reports filed March 31, we learned who’s pulling in the bucks ahead of the June 11 City Council Democratic primary,  as well as the funds raised by independents Paul Long and Bellamy Brown.

Categories
News

Rob Jiranek out as Daily Progress publisher

A little more than two years ago, former C-VILLE Weekly co-owner Rob Jiranek was named publisher of the Daily Progress. Today, the announcement of a new publisher and Jiranek’s abrupt departure “to pursue other opportunities” caught many at the Progress by surprise.

“I don’t have any comment,” says BH Media Regional Vice President Terry Jamerson when she was reached in Roanoke, where she’s publisher of the Roanoke Times, and asked about how long the management change had been in the works. “I don’t think it would be appropriate.”

Jamerson directed a reporter to the press release on the Progress website, which names Peter Yates, a Woodberry Forest grad like Jiranek, as the new publisher.

Yates started his career at the Progress 33 years ago, and since 2000 has been the editor and general manager of the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg. He was also president of the Page Shenandoah Newspaper Corporation. The sale of the family-owned News-Record and the Winchester Star to Ogden Newspapers was announced in March.

Jiranek was a co-owner of C-VILLE from 1995 to 2006. He left for the Commercial Appeal in Memphis, where he was vice president of sales and strategic planning. There, he introduced monetization of content in 2007, but sponsorships for news seemed to fall through after editors objected and other media outlets reported on the breaching of the traditionally impermeable wall between editorial and advertising.

Earlier this year at the Progress, the wall between advertising and news came down—literally—at its Rio Road office.

Jiranek, like most newspaper publishers, was dealing with dwindling circulation, which had dropped from 21,274 in 2012 to 14,693 in 2016. Last year, the Progress, which is owned by Warren Buffett’s BH Media, laid off three employees.

It’s also seen three editors during Jiranek’s brief tenure. Nick Mathews, who also left to pursue other opportunities, served as editor for 14 months through July 2016 and is now FOIA officer at UVA. He was succeeded by Wes Hester, who lasted about as long and also went to UVA as its deputy spokesperson. Aaron Richardson was named editor in January.

 

Categories
News

In brief: Not a noose, mayor on ‘The View’ and more

Mayor Nikuyah Walker gets national exposure on "The View."

Nikuyah goes national

The first black female mayor of Charlottesville sat at the table with co-hosts of “The View” on Martin Luther King Day to discuss the current state of the city, which has pushed a narrative that Unite the Right participants brought their hate from out of town, she said. Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler are UVA alumni, Walker noted. “You have to be honest to move forward and we have been unwilling.”

We’re on edge

A photo of two thick brown ropes with eyelet holes hanging in front of the Central Library on the night of Friday, January 12, was picked up by multiple outlets—including C-VILLE Weekly—and circulated widely before police confirmed that the ominous ropes were rigging for the banners that go across East Market Street and not, in fact, nooses.

New editor

The Daily Progress has named Aaron Richardson its editor-in-chief. The former assistant city editor and reporter at the Progress has also reported for Charlottesville Tomorrow, and succeeds Wes Hester, who stuck it out for 15 months before taking a job as a deputy spokesperson for UVA.

“Literally speechless. In the greatest stroke of irony since Alanis Morissette wrote a song about irony that wasn’t about irony, I lost my voice at the beginning of this, my last week as a professional spokesperson.”—Miriam Dickler in her sign-off from the city last week

Oh, hoppy day

The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a special use permit for expansion at Keene-based hopyard Greenmont Hopworks, where owners will build a new 10,000-square-foot facility to process the plant used to flavor beer.

Lock your doors

City police say they’ve taken several reports from people in the Rosser Lane, Blue Ridge, Hessian and Rugby Road areas who say their unlocked vehicles were ransacked between 11pm and 4am late January 14 and early January 15. In one case, cash was stolen.

McAuliffe’s greatest hits—and misses

Photo John Robinson

When Terry McAuliffe first ran for governor in 2009, many saw him as a carpetbagger with stronger ties to the Clintons than to the commonwealth. Despite being edged out in the Democratic primary by state Senator Creigh Deeds, McAuliffe ran again and won the governor’s mansion in 2013, and even won the grudging respect of some of the Republicans who controlled the General Assembly during his term—but not all. Vetoing a record 120 bills, many on social issues, probably didn’t help.

As Governor Ralph Northam begins his term, we took a look back on the record of the man whose name keeps popping up as a Dem presidential candidate for 2020—along with another Virginian, Senator Tim Kaine—and who kept touting accomplishments right up through the morning of Northam’s inauguration.

Hits

  • Restoring voting rights of 173,000 felons
  • Unemployment down from 5.4 percent to 3.7 percent
  • Revitalization of the Port of Virginia, which was on the chopping block
  • Used economic development to ward off divisive social bills like the transgender bathroom bill North Carolina passed—and for which it suffered boycotts
  • $20 billion in capital investment, including Facebook and Amazon facilities in Virginia
  • Functional end to veteran homelessness in Virginia

“I have a message to all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Our message is plain and simple. Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth.” Terry McAuliffe on August 12

Misses

  • Unsuccessful at getting Medicaid expansion through the General Assembly, despite having Republicans over for beers
  • Sued by the GOP leadership for the blanket restoration of felon voting rights
  • Support of natural gas pipelines irked environmentalists and citizens whose properties are in their paths
  • Duped into a state grant of $1.4 million to a Chinese company that failed to open a plant in Appomattox, while repayment of a $5 million loan to another Chinese company, Tranlin, to build a paper plant in Chesterfield has stalled
  • In a radio interview on his way out the door of the governor’s mansion he blames Charlottesville officials for the events of August 12 because they granted a permit
Categories
News

In brief: No permits, no DP editor, no daycare license and more

Jason Kessler's permit for the anniversary Unite the Right rally was denied. Photo by Eze Amos

Permission denied

Minutes before a decision was due, City Manager Maurice Jones denied several special event permits for rallies and counterrallies proposed on the weekend of August 12 in Emancipation, Justice and McGuffey parks—ground zero for the summer’s Unite the Right rally that left three people dead and countless wounded.

The first application was filed by local right-winger Jason Kessler for a “Back to Charlottesville” rally on the one-year anniversary of Unite the Right. He touted the event as a protest “against government civil rights abuse and failure to follow security plans for political dissidents,” in his application filed November 27.

In the city manager’s denial of Kessler’s application, he wrote, “The applicant requests that police keep ‘opposing sides’ separate and that police ‘leave’ a ‘clear path into [the] event without threat of violence,’ but [the] city does not have the ability to determine or sort individuals according to what ‘side’ they are on and…[can’t] guarantee that event participants will be free of any ‘threat to violence.’”

Another denied permit was filed by Brian Lambert, an acquaintance of Kessler’s, who hoped to host “Donald Trump Appreciation Weekend” in neighboring parks during the Back to Charlottesville rally.

Curry School professor and activist Walt Heinecke, City Councilor Bob Fenwick and photographer M.A. Shurtleff also requested to hold counter events in the parks over the same weekend, and their permits were denied because they present a danger to public safety, don’t align with the parks’ time constraints and the applicants did not specify how they would take responsibility for their rally attendees, according to Jones.

At the bottom of each denial, Jones wrote that applicants should be advised that future permits will be reviewed under the city’s standard operating procedures for demonstrations and special events in effect when the applications are received. The city manager is expected to go before City Council on December 18 with proposed updates, which include prohibiting certain items from rallies.

In Kessler’s blog post where he announced his plans for a Unite the Right redo, he said he had an arsenal of lawyers prepared to fight back if city officials didn’t grant his application—and he fully expected them not to.

“The initial permit decision is bogus,” Kessler writes on Twitter. “The rationale they give for denying it almost makes it seem like they want me to win. See you guys in court!”

“The proposed demonstration or special event will present a danger to public safety.” Maurice Jones in his denial of 13 permits for proposed August 12 events

Another editor leaves the Progress

Wes Hester, who took the helm of the Daily Progress in July 2016, is ending his little-more-than-a-year tenure. He followed former Houston Chronicle sports editor Nick Mathews, who stayed 14 months. Also departing are four other staffers, including reporters Michael Bragg and Dean Seal.

Daycare bust

photo Albemarle County police

Kathy Yowell Rohm, 53, was arrested December 6 after 16 babies and small children were found in her unlicensed Forest Lakes home. Rohm was charged with felony cruelty, and already faced charges stemming from a separate November 24 incident at the UVA-Virginia Tech football game that includes a felony assault charge for allegedly biting an EMT and public intoxication.

 

 

 

Animal abuser pleads guilty

Orange Sheriff’s Office

Anne Shumate Williams, convicted in November of 22 counts of animal cruelty for the neglect of horses, cats and dogs at her Orange County nonprofit horse rescue called Peaceable Farm,  pleaded guilty December 7 to a related embezzlement charge for using nearly $128,000 in donations for horse breeding. A five-year sentence was suspended on the condition Williams serves 18 months for the cruelty charges.

 

 

Harris could face misdemeanor

The man who was brutally beaten August 12 and was accused of felony malicious wounding could see his charge reduced to a misdemeanor, according to the Daily Progress. Commonwealth’s Attorney Dave Chapman filed a motion to amend Deandre Harris’ charge to misdemeanor assault.

Clifton Inn sold

The historic luxury inn has been acquired by D.C.-based Westmount Capital Group LLC and Richmond-based EKG LLC, led by the McGeorge family. The inn was previously owned by Mitch and Emily Willey, who restored it after a 2003 fire took two lives.

Attempted abduction arrest

City police arrested Matthew Kyle Logarides, 29, on abduction and sexual battery charges for an October 27 attempted grab at 1115 Wertland St. The victim said she was walking alone around 2am when he approached her from behind, covered her mouth and took her to the ground. Logarides, unknown to her, fled the scene when witnesses heard her scream.

Man with a Christmas plan

Restaurateur Will Richey was spotted adding some Christmas decorations to light poles last week. Staff photo

Will Richey, owner of Revolutionary Soup, The Whiskey Jar and other downtown eateries, is really into the holiday spirit. And he’d like the Downtown Mall to look a bit more festive.

“The entire downtown business group and all the merchants are in shock at the lack of decorations and the half-hearted effort,” he says.

He points to the garlands with lights that don’t work wrapped around light poles, the red-ribbonless wreaths and the “lovely tree” beside the fountain with orange construction barricades in front. “The city requires us to put up black metal [fencing],” he says. “Why don’t they? It looks like garbage.”

Those barricades are not adding to the holiday spirit. Staff photo

Richey—with the help of the Downtown Business Association of Charlottesville and city staff—is taking matters into his own hands and plans a future winter wonderland, with the block in front of Splendora’s as a model for decking the mall for the holidays.

He was up on a ladder last week installing colored lights on the nonfunctioning garlands. “The city has not officially endorsed this,” he admits, but he sees it as “fulfilling what they originally intended.”

Says Richey, “We’ve had a hard summer, we’ve had a hard year.” He believes if Charlottesville went all out, it could be a holiday tourist destination. And he’ll be “working even harder to get something beautiful up next year.”

 

Correction: Wes Hester’s name was botched in the original version.

Categories
News

In brief: ‘Hit piece,’ the unshrouder and more

Nikuyah Walker admits she doesn’t follow the rules very well. Staff photo

But her emails

Independent City Council candidate Nikuyah Walker was the target of a November 4 story in the Daily Progress that she and her supporters called a “hit piece”—three days before the election—in which an anonymous source in City Hall questions her ability to “work collaboratively with city officials.” The story described her emails to officials as “aggressive” and “often confrontational.”

“Advocates for social justice don’t always behave politely.”—Joy Johnson to City Council on the topic of protesters arrested at their August 21 meeting

Blank slate

Dillwyn’s entire town council is up for re-election, but when the longtime clerk retired, no one reminded the councilors to register as candidates to be on the ballot. The ballot will be blank, and Dillwyn’s 244 registered voters must write in the names of the seven councilors they want to elect, according to the Progress.

Fogel files again

Civil rights attorney Jeff Fogel is suing Charlottesville, City Manager Maurice Jones and law firm Hunton & Williams on behalf of five plaintiffs, contending that Jones had no authority to hire the firm’s partner Tim Heaphy to do an independent review of the city’s response to the events of August 12.

Jeff Fogel, with plaintiffs Joy Johnson, Tanesha Hudson and Walt Heinecke, wants the city to fire Tim Heaphy. Staff photo

An end to Democracy

Nelson County’s Democracy Vineyards, which opened in 2007, announced it will close after Thanksgiving this year.

Another attempt

Around 1am November 5, city police arrested Brian Lambert in Emancipation Park and charged him with vandalism, trespassing and being drunk in public for allegedly cutting the orange fencing surrounding the Robert E. Lee statue. Lambert, arrested for being drunk at UVA on September 12, when students shrouded their Thomas Jefferson statue, is also one of three people who attempted to uncover General Lee on September 16.

Best BACON

Charlottesville High’s code-writing wunderkinds in Best All-Around Club of Nerds win first place in the first round of NASA and  MIT’s Zero Robotics competition.

Keep ’em at home

Signs at Water Street Garage, Rapture and UVA lawn. Photos staff and Emily Bagdasarian

While another tragic mass shooting made headlines over the weekend, some Charlottesville institutions are putting forth their best effort to make this city bulletproof.

Twelve days before a man who was booted out of the Air Force for domestic violence dressed in all-black tactical gear and shot up a First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 and injuring 20 others, about a dozen signs prohibiting all weapons appeared at every entry point on the University of Virginia Lawn.

UVA spokesperson Anthony de Bruyn did not respond to multiple interview requests about the warnings, but other local entities that ban firearms were willing to discuss their decisions.

Charlottesville Parking Center officials posted “No Guns” signs in the Water Street Parking Garage in the immediate aftermath of the August 12 Unite the Right rally, according to general manager and former mayor Dave Norris.

“We were concerned when we saw dozens of heavily-armed neo-Nazis using the garage as a staging area on the morning of August 12 and had no grounds to ask them to leave, and received no response from law enforcement when we reported this activity to them,” says Norris. “Now that the signs are in place, we are better equipped to manage situations like this in the future.”

As for the sticker on Rapture’s door that bans firearms, owner Mike Rodi says it was largely in response to the summer’s “hate rallies,” when KKK and Unite the Right protesters “made it clear that they would take advantage of Virginia’s open carry laws and come armed.”

The owner of the Downtown Mall restaurant says businesses near the epicenter of the deadly rally “used every tool at their disposal to keep racist troublemakers out,” and signage was part of that. On August 12, many businesses also posted dress code signs banning hate symbols.

Rapture has long had a no-gun policy, says Rodi. “Guns and booze don’t mix.”

Other businesses posted no-gun signs before this summer. In late 2015, shoppers in Whole Foods became upset when they spotted a man packing heat in the produce section. Though Virginia is an open-carry state, Whole Foods’ corporate policy bans all weapons, and a sign declaring so was posted on its door by January 2016.

Eugene Williams Day

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy presents Eugene Williams with a proclamation on his 90th birthday. Staff photo

Charlottesville’s legendary civil rights leader Eugene Williams turned 90 November 6, and Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy presented him with a proclamation declaring the day Eugene Williams Day at a birthday celebration November 4 at the Boar’s Head Inn.

As president of the local NAACP chapter in the 1950s, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that separate but equal schools didn’t cut it, Williams recruited plaintiffs to sue the Charlottesville School Board.

In 1980, Williams convinced his wife, Lorraine, brother Albert and sister-in-law Emma to sink their life savings into Dogwood Housing to provide
affordable housing to families throughout the city, bucking the trend of housing the poor in projects.

And the proclamation declares, “Eugene Williams has served as a symbolic conscience of Charlottesville for what is right and fair for all people and for bridging the diverse parts of the Charlottesville community.”

Categories
News

Anonymous source: Progress story on Nikuyah Walker called a ‘hit piece’

Nikuyah Walker admits she doesn’t follow the rules very well. Staff photo

Three days before the November 7 election, the Daily Progress ran a story on independent candidate Nikuyah Walker with the headline, “Emails show Walker’s aggressive approach.”

Her supporters have gone ballistic on social media over the story.

The article describes dozens of emails Walker has sent city officials as indicative of her style of communication: “particularly outspoken,” “often confrontational” and in the online headline, “unabashedly aggressive.”

Reporter Chris Suarez says in the story a source in City Hall who wishes to remain anonymous “called attention to her emails, voicing concerns about her ability to work collaboratively with city officials.”

Journalist Jordy Yager, who has written for C-VILLE Weekly, on Twitter called the article a “hit piece” and asks why an anonymous source was used. He notes that the Society of Professional Journalists advises, “Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity.”

Speculation on the anonymous source is centering on Mayor Mike Signer. After the August 12 debacle, a memo written by Signer was leaked to the press from an anonymous email account.

On Facebook, Walker says, “This article is a hit piece initiated by Mike Signer. Chris informed me that the same person who ‘leaked his own memo’ tipped him to my emails.” Walker goes on to say that no one needed to tip Suarez to the “unabashedly aggressive” emails because he had been copied on them in the past.

Suarez says that’s not exactly what he said in an “offhand comment” to Walker. He says he told Walker, “I think it could be the same person who leaked his memo.” He adds that he does not know for sure that Signer was the source of the leaked memo that threw City Manager Maurice Jones and police Chief Al Thomas under the bus for the events of August 12.

“That’s all I can say,” says Suarez.

In an email, Signer provided a statement he plans to make at tonight’s City Council meeting. He says he was approached by an employee of the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program who had concerns about a “vendetta” against AHIP by a council candidate. A number of Walker’s emails expressed frustration with the quality of work done on her home through the program.

Signer says, “I have openly shared with folks my concerns about emails Council received from the Council candidate about AHIP containing profane attacks against our staff and against AHIP.” He denies directing anyone to seek a Freedom of Information Act request for the emails, which are public records, or issuing one.

He points out the use of “coded” words like “aggressive,” which Fortune magazine reports are frequently used to describe women, but almost never men. “I also want to make clear how disappointed and frustrated I was by the paper’s decision to use such language, and by the questionable timing of the article—the day before the paper’s endorsements of two other candidates,” says Signer.

“My reaction is they’re trying to tamper with the election the way the Russians did,” says activist and Walker supporter Walt Heinecke. “I find it unethical both on the part of the Daily Progress and the anonymous source.”

Heinecke notes that the day before the November 4 Progress story, Democratic candidates Amy Laufer and Heather Hill held a press conference in which they said the most important thing they’re expressing is their willingness to collaborate with City Council, city staff and the community.

“It’s beyond the pale to think it’s coincidence,” says Heinecke. Laufer and Hill had not responded to requests for comment at press time.

“I’ve been hearing disgust and disappointment,” says Heinecke. He also says he’s hearing more people say they’re going to single-shot Walker, a voting strategy of using just one of two votes for council to avoid giving more to the Democrats, who hold a sizeable majority in town.

Former mayor Dave Norris, also a Walker supporter, wrote on Facebook that he’d submitted a letter to the editor to the Progress a few days earlier to endorse Walker and it was rejected. He says the response from the newspaper was, “We stop running political letters…three or four days prior to the election so that no one can slip in a last-minute bombshell without time for an opposing view to be submitted.”

“But apparently this rule does not apply to their own news page, or at least not when they’re doing the bidding of their ‘anonymous source’ on City Council,” writes Norris.

Daily Progress editor Wesley Hester did not immediately respond to a call from C-VILLE.

Walker has taken heat for her use of the f-word, particularly at the out-of-control August 21 City Council meeting. She acknowledges she uses curse words, but points out that people died August 12 and questions people being more upset by a curse word.

She has said the biggest issue she faces in the election is being a “very assertive” black female and whether voters are comfortable with that.

Vice-Mayor Wes Bellamy says on Facebook he’s been trying to stay out of the election, but he blasts the Progress story and says the “powers that be” are terrified of Walker because of her strength and the fact that she speaks her mind on issues of equity, systemic oppression and racism.

Polls open at 6am Tuesday.

Updated 4:20pm with Mayor Mike Signer’s comments.

 

Categories
News

Daily Progress and Newsplex lay off staff

The Daily Progress' abundance of Virginia Press Association awards did not prevent layoffs as circulation continues to decline. Staff photo

The same week the Daily Progress won a whopping 42 awards at the April 8 Virginia Press Association banquet, including 13 first-place plaques, the paper, which is owned by a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, laid off three employees.

The Progress, like many other former Media General-owned newspapers, thought it had been thrown a life raft when Buffett bought Media General’s print operations in 2012.

And while national newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have seen a surge in subscriptions since the 2016 election, that growth hasn’t trickled down to local levels. The Daily Progress had a circulation of 21,274 in 2012, but by 2016 it was down to 14,693, the Columbia Journalism Review reports, a nearly 31 percent drop.

BH Media Group, which owns 31 daily newspapers, including the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Roanoke Times, handed out pink slips April 3 to 181 employees and another 108 vacant positions were slashed because of declining advertising revenue and circulation, according to BH Media CEO Terry Kroeger in a memo. The particularly hard hit RTD axed 33 employees, including 13 in the newsroom.

The Progress had to do some “belt-tightening” to adjust for revenue declines, says publisher Rob Jiranek, who was a C-VILLE Weekly owner from 1995-2006. That affected three people in advertising, he says in an email, and other positions won’t be filled immediately.

“Newsroom remains strong, like bull,” he writes.

Jiranek echoes Buffett’s earlier belief in local papers when he told the CJR there’s “certainly a strong instinct and faith that we need to maintain the fundamental strength of our newsrooms and the core competency of great, local journalism. And I underscore ‘local’ in the phrase like three times.”

A couple of weeks ago, a report circulated that the Newsplex was cutting its weekend news broadcast in a cost-saving move and would simulcast news from WHSV in Harrisonburg.

That option had been discussed, and then discarded, says Jay Barton, Newsplex general manager. One technical position has been cut, he says.

The Newplex’s Charlottesville CBS, Fox and ABC stations are owned by Atlanta-based Gray Television, and Barton says the operating cuts were based on individual local station needs and were not company wide.

“Our company is as strong as it has ever been, and only growing,” says Barton in an email. “When I joined the company in 2012, we served 31 markets and Gray now serves 56 markets with a market cap of just under $1 billion.”

Updated 11am April 18 with Jiranek’s C-VILLE ownership.