Recently , I have been collaborating with “The Carrborean” to interview local candidates for competitive Orange County seats, on WCOM radio.
What’s the “The Carrborean“? You ask? You may have noticed a new print paper whilst visiting local Carrboro businesses, such places like Lanza’s or Openeye Cafe, Weaver Street Market… From the paper’s web site, the Carrborean is:
The Carrborean is an independent publication launched in June 2025. We aim to connect the community and support local businesses and organizations through sharing stories, art, and information about events and people living in, working in, and visiting Carrboro. We deliver hyper-local news to foster connection and amplify voices, supporting the arts, living, and civic engagement in Carrboro.
Also from from the Carrborean’s web site, the Carrborean is:
The Carrborean was started last year by Jennifer Yourkavitch who has lived in Carrboro for 12 years. Jennifer has been epidemiologist and lactation consultant and has worked on improving the health of women, children, and families around the world for over 25 years. Along with thousands of other scientists and tens of thousands of foreign aid specialists, Jennifer lost her job in the federal government in 2025. The focus of the paper is Carrboro and only Carrboro. Their first printed edition came out in September of last year.
We were intrigued by the paper, and met with Jennifer in late December. The first example of our collaboration has been the County Elections. In all, Jennifer and I interviewed 7 candidates for offices that range from County Commissioner, Register of Deeds to Sheriff.
Jennifer asked the candidates the same questions related to their office. Naturally, because of the format of a personal interview, the candidates responses were different, and often led in directions that reflected the candidates experiences and focus on why they were running.
You can find transcripts and audio of all the interviews on the Carrborean web site. As I was already involved in an effort to contact all the candidates for the Sierra Club endorsement process, I was able to provide the publicly available information from the NC Board of Elections website so we could identify the candidates and then, Jennifer contacted them all for interviews.
- You can listen to the WCOM interviews here.
- You can read summarized transcripts from the interview from the Carrborean home page.
Why we think The Carrborean is important
The Blog Blog is, well it’s a blog. We are not a newspaper. For sure, we report on newsworthy events, such as elections. We are also about to embark on a length series of articles about the Chapel Hill Carrboro Carrboro City Schools. But at the end of the day, we are not a newspaper, and have never considered ourself a paper.
What Jennifer is doing at The Carrborean deserves our (and your support). You will probably see us either reprinting or sending links to some of their articles in the future and invite people with ideas to send them to The Carrborean (as well as us). Keep in mind, the hyperlocal focus of The Carrborean is Carrboro. The blog blog covers the triangle area, including Chapel Hill (admittedly, we have mostly focused within Orange County, but we aspire to do more Durham pieces).
You can also support them by going here to subscribe and also help sustain and support The Carrborean financially. Looking for a copy? look here to find some locations.
