Is this the end for The Local Reporter?

Updated: 9/13 The timeline at the bottom of this post has been updated. The paper now says it won’t close and it’s close to announcing a new board of directors.

Last Thursday, The Local Reporter – the local non-profit newspaper with close ties to a political PAC – posted that they would “transition to an energetic new group of Board of Directors” and “provide a new, fresh format for the future” on August 27, and also that without $10,000 in donations, they would immediately shut down four days later on September 1.

The announcement was odd: the post did not name the ‘energetic new group’ of Board of Directors who presumably would only serve for a few days before the possible shut down. We don’t know who they are, or what connections they have to the current board – all of whom served in leadership roles in a local organization with a PAC. 

What we do know is this: This isn’t the first time The Local Reporter has used an imminent shutdown as a donor pitch. After launching with $18,000, the paper’s board has repeatedly told readers it has been close to shutting down, and needs their immediate intervention. In October 2022, they threatened that Thanksgiving would be the last issue. 

In December 2022, they raised at least $10,000 – including a $5,000 dollar match from an anonymous donor – through an urgent appeal.

In June 2023, they raised another $21,000, again after an urgent plea of imminent closure. An email told readers that “we will deplete our resources within a couple of months” in December 2023. Another email was published in April 2024 touting a connection with UNC’s journalism school and requesting an additional $5000 for interns. (There was no connection with UNC’s journalism school.) 

During the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the paper raised $59,880, all through donations. (The Local Reporter’s website says it lists all $5,000+ donors. Records from the Internet Archive show several of these donors have been removed over time.) In the 2022-23 filing, they also claimed that all three members of the Board of Directors were each working 20 hours a week on the paper, which is unique in the non-profit news ecosystem. 

I’ve been following The Local Reporter since they started and it’s been quite the ride. If you’re just joining us, a short timeline:

May 2018: CHALT, a Chapel Hill-based organization that runs candidates in local election cycles, has a PAC, and endorses candidates writes in a post-election debrief, that they are interested in starting a newspaper because they disagree with Indyweek’s endorsements and thought it hurt their own endorsed candidates at the polls. Interested community members are told to email [email protected].

August 2018: CHALT holds a closed coordinating committee meeting to discuss ‘summer update on town issues.’ Agenda item 8 is entitled: “Del: Starting a local newspaper.” (They later tell The News and Observer that “CHALT meetings held zero discussions about organizing and funding a newspaper because those activities were undertaken independently by another group.”) 

Emails obtained by Triangle Blog Blog show that in addition to discussing the paper at CHALT’s August meeting, lots of additional discussion took place on the CHALT private listserv about starting and funding a newspaper. In a conversation about the newspaper, Rudy Juliano, who served as the assistant treasurer of CHALT’s PAC and is now a member of the board of directors leading The Local Reporter, wrote “I think this is an important task for CHALT. Please keep me updated”

A document entitled “Your Local Paper Working Members’ Telephone Numbers” which was shared with the CHALT listserv lists nine members of CHALT, one member of Friends of Bolin Creek (which shares an IP address and PO BOX with CHALT), and three others. 

2019: CHALT publishes the first mention of The Local Reporter in a column called “Our Town Needs a Newspaper.” They later publish an update from Friends of Local Journalism on their website, stating plans are to launch a newspaper in the spring of 2019.

May 2019: The IRS grants 501c3 status to The Friends of Local Journalism, a non-profit organization publishing The Local Reporter. FOLJ has three listed officers, all of whom have leadership roles in CHALT: 

• Del Snow, the President of FOLJ, was listed as a spokesperson for CHALT through June of 2021. In 2019, she is also listed as CHALT’s contact to “Advocate and Promote Local Candidates” and “Improve transparency in town government, monitor types of development proposed.”
• Fred Lampe, the Treasurer of FOLJ, was the original treasurer of CHALT’s PAC and was listed as the head of fiscal responsibility for CHALT. 
• Rudy Juliano, the Secretary of FOLJ, is a member of CHALT and has written editorials and hosted public forums for CHALT on topics ranging from tree cover to high-tech commercial development. Until 2022, he was the assistant treasurer of CHALT’s PAC.

After Triangle Blog Blog wrote about these connections, they are removed from the CHALT website.

August 2019: The Local Reporter launches with unbylined news pieces and no masthead. On their about page, they say: We are only using by-lines for articles that have been submitted to us. Otherwise, the news articles in The Local Reporter have no bylines because they are written and edited collaboratively by members of Friends of Local Journalism. 

The paper’s first feature is on Save the Chelsea and trying to get people to join as members. There’s no mention that several of the board members at FOLJ led this effort to Save the Chelsea and served on its board, or that Tom Henkel, ID’ed as a “retired college professor” was a donor to the paper and a co-founder of CHALT with the members of the board. 

An unbylined piece published August 18, 2019 entitled “Why Businesses are Leaving Chapel Hill” quotes a person that one of the board members founded a company with, without disclosing that relationship, and contains phrases directly lifted from a CHALT article entitled “Hi-Tech Development in Chapel Hill: Progress and Challenges.”

An unbylined news article published March 20, 2020 about “high density projects in Chapel Hill” overlaps with a previous CHALT piece written by Del Snow. There is no mention of this, or that Snow wrote a piece in the CHALT newsletter opposing one of the developments in the piece. (There is no mention in another unbylined news piece about the Charterwood/Evolve Development that Snow, the former head of Chapel Hill’s Planning Board, sued the town to block from going forward.)

February 2020: Local journalist Kirk Ross posts about links between the paper and CHALT on his Facebook page.

July 2020: Board chair and CHALT cofounder Del Snow writes an article slanted against the extension of a road in The Local Reporter. The article does not ID her as the board chair of the paper. She quotes Julie McClintock, a founder of CHALT, but does not mention their connection. Del Snow signed a petition opposing the Elliot Road Extension on July 29, 2020, two weeks before the piece is published.

March 2021-June 2021: In March 2021, Neal Offen leaves as editor and is replaced by Nancy Oates (who has been featured in the paper repeatedly) and is a former Town Council candidate endorsed by CHALT, and a cofounder of CHALT. All three members of Friends of Local Journalism donated to Oates’ campaign.

Oates’ role at the paper is not announced by the newspaper or Oates until Triangle Blog Blog presses the paper on Twitter for their editor’s name in June 2021. (When asked simple questions about the paper’s setup on Twitter they told me that I was lying, called me a Trumpist, told me all of my facts are wrong, told several people I had an agenda, and wouldn’t answer questions about their staff, editors, and how/if the board selects story ideas and gives questions for reporters to ask (they do both, Triangle Blog Blog has emails showing this.) 

Triangle Blog Blog spoke to four freelance reporters who worked with Offen and Oates, and all reported that the topics changed around this time: they became much more development heavy and aligned with the issues that Nancy had pressed in her campaign.

The paper appoints Adam Searing to their advisory board in June 2021. Members of Friends of Local Journalism’s listed board in June 2021 include one elected official (Randee Haven-Donnell, of Carrboro Town Council).

Both the Twitter account and the paper’s reporting email address are used and accessed by the Board of Directors.

During Oates’ tenure, Fred Lampe forwards a note to Chapel Hill Town Council from the editor’s mail box from the Estes Neighbors listserv. Estes Neighbors, a website that shares an IP address with CHALT, was created as a standalone site to oppose a new development called Aura. Representing CHALT, Lampe gives an interview to The Daily Tar Heel in March 2021 about opposing the development. Board member Juliano questions the appropriateness of the development on the CHALT website. Both are  members of Estes Neighbors. An unbylined piece published by the paper on April 27, 2021 promotes Estes Neighbors and shares some of the talking points that CHALT and Estes Neighbors circulate. The unbylined piece in The Local Reporter mirrors this bylined piece Juliano writes about the development in his neighborhood newsletter. It does not mention that Board members of the paper serve on the advisory boards mentioned in the piece. It also does not mention that Fred Lampe also represented an organization called Concerned Central West Citizens which appears to also have been created to block the development.

June 2021: Oates leaves the paper and immediately endorses Adam Searing for Town Council. Searing leaves the advisory board, and later denies that he ever served on the advisory board for the paper.

The paper launches a Kickstarter and promises direct access to reporters for a $1000 donation. In the video promo for the Kickstarter, they show a historic Black church and call it a house when they talk about poverty and unaffordable housing. (The speaker refers to the structure as run-down housing. Again, not housing! It’s a church!) The campaign raises $206.

David Schwartz, a former town council candidate endorsed by CHALT, is named the third editor of the paper. Schwartz is also a co-founder of CHALT. In 2015, Schwartz was listed as the lead for planning and design for the organization. In 2016, he was listed as the lead for communications for CHALT.

He also remained on the CHALT listserv – where members share political strategy – through at least October 2022 after becoming the editor of The Local Reporter in July of 2021. That means he was on the listserv during the contentious 2021 local election cycle while simultaneously overseeing election coverage at the paper.

The Local Reporter covers the same developments and topics that Schwartz opposed before joining the paper. One reporter, who asked not to be named, told me that Schwartz provided a list of sources to contact without mentioning their CHALT connections, sent along questions to ask them, and then heavily edited the piece copy after it was turned in.

“When I submitted my piece for editing, he cut large amounts of what I had written, leaving it lopsided,” the reporter wrote. (The paper has churned through student reporters, many of whom have left after being asked to change copy.)

The week before the 2021 election, while serving as the paper’s editor, Schwartz wrote to a neighborhood listserv with an unsubstantiated rumor about town council fast-tracking approval for a development project. This was false. The development, however, was a key issue in the 2021 election and CHALT’s endorsed candidate had made it the key issue of his campaign platform. The paper then covered the development project extensively.

The Board of Directors of Friends of Local Journalism, which publishes The Local Reporter, also remain active on the private CHALT listserv.

October 2021: The News and Observer publishes a piece about overlaps between The Local Reporter and CHALT and notes that The Local Reporter was asked to leave INN, a non-profit journalism consortium. They are later asked to leave LION, another news consortium. They are also no longer listed as a member of the North Carolina Press Association.

In response to the N&O piece, the paper says “The essence of the accusations against TLR is that members of TLR who are affiliated with CHALT did not disclose that association. Our readers understand that people can be part of different projects and yet keep them separate.”

April 2022: Triangle Blog Blog writes our first piece looking at The Local Reporter, after which the paper adds a masthead and biographies for their editor and board of directors. However, these remain incomplete as they do not mention that David Schwartz was also a founder of CHALT and that he also ran for Town Council. In addition, Del Snow was one of the founders of both CHALT and CURB, not just an active member.

Summer 2022: The Local Reporter hires their fourth editor, who stays three months before quitting. They hire their fifth editor…who lives in Florida.

That’s unusual, to say the least, for the editor of a local newspaper reporting strictly on local news. We can’t think of any other local newspaper in the country that operates in this manner.

March 2023: The paper hires their sixth editor. (The paper’s most recent editor, of Florida, acknowledged ethical issues and lapses in her farewell column; there is, apparently, now a firewall in place.)  

June/July 2023: The Local Reporter covers Adam Searing in a profile when he runs for mayor. (Searing was endorsed by CHALT.) They don’t mention his opponent, Jess Anderson, when she files – and only write a piece on her after Triangle Blog Blog mentions the omission. 

The sixth editor then quits. 

August 2023: The paper hires their 7th editor. The Local Reporter appoints Julia Runk Jones to temporarily edit the paper. Jones previously served as the paper’s dog columnist for the past three months. Her biography notes that she “resides in Chapel Hill on a large property with her son and five beloved Rhodesian Ridgebacks. ” No announcement was made by the paper. In addition, Michelle Cassell’s title has changed from assignment editor to managing editor. No announcement was made by the paper.

September 2023: The paper publishes a piece about Legion Pond from their Chapel Hill correspondent, who is the public information officer for Rockingham County Schools in Eden, N.C. – roughly 80 minutes away. The piece skips over roughly three years of history that took place related to the pond.

November 2023: Most stories published the day after an election start with the winners, and perhaps a quote from that person. Not so in this case. This piece, published the day after the election, highlights the following:

• A link to the one precinct where Adam Searing collected more votes (by 8) than Jess Anderson
• A lengthy quote from Adam Searing’s newsletter about his loss
• No quotes from Jess Anderson
• The incorrect notion that candidate Renuka Soll might be leading Elizabeth Sharp in the votes. (This is not correct. Two of Chapel Hill’s precincts are located in Durham County, meaning that to see full unofficial results, you have to look at results for both Orange County and Durham County – the reporter only seems to be looking at Orange County.) Sharp won.

Del Snow posts on NextDoor that she has not been involved with CHALT since 2019. Email records show Snow remains active on the CHALT listserv as of October 2023. 

December 2023: The Local Reporter  substantially reworks a piece without any mention of the change taking place. Buckner is an active member of the CHALT listserv alongside all three Friends of Local Journalism board members.

There are several examples of this over the years; student reporters at the paper have told Triangle Blog Blog that sources who are friends with the editorial staff have requested changes if “they don’t like the framing of the piece.” Another piece is completely reworked in March 2024. One piece is completely deleted – it is written by Diana Newton, the campaign manager for a candidate in Carrboro,

March 2024: The Local Reporter  fundraises against a connection with UNC’s journalism school. There’s no connection. 

Summer 2024: The Local Reporter removes government and development from its visible content bar, though stories are still tagged with these topics. 

August 24 2024: The Local Reporter says it will close on September 1 without additional immediate funding and announces that they will announce a new board of directors on August 27.

August 27 2024: No new board of directors is announced. The Local Reporter publishes a story for the first time about the Orange County Board of Equalization denying a tax adjustment for a project on Franklin Street. (This is a routine thing that happens and there has never been any coverage prior. It should be noted that CHALT members opposed this particular project.) The piece does not mention that one of the three members of the Board of Equalization (Tony Blake) is one of two members of The Local Reporter’s advisory board.

August 27 2024: The Local Reporter adds a fundraising thermometer to its homepage, stating that it has raised $6,000. It still says it will transition to an “energetic new group of Board of Director members…starting on August 27.”

August 30 2024: The Local Reporter now says it will close at the end of September, not September 1. No new board of directors has been posted.

September 1 2024: The Local Reporter adds a fundraising thermometer to social media, stating that it has raised $5,000.

September 13 2024: The Local Reporer now says that they have “raised funds close to our $10,000 goal, which allows us to move forward. TLR will announce a new Board of Directors and some great plans soon!”