Every day for the past year and a half, I’ve had the privilege of helping share and tell Fayetteville’s unique stories.
In the fall of 2023, I became CityView’s managing editor. Since then, I’ve gotten a crash course in our community’s strengths, nuances, and challenges. We helped break stories of significance about Cumberland County, kept you informed on our local government and elected officials, and produced magazines that illuminate the rich diversity and culture of our community.
When we found out a waste-to-energy plant that turns plastic into fuel was planned in a predominantly Black and lower-income Fayetteville neighborhood, we pursued answers about what that would mean for residents. Our reporting directly informed our community, who came together to learn more about the project and voice their opposition — leading the company to pull out of the location altogether. When county commissioners moved to place a 30-day pause on construction of the $145 million Crown Event Center project, our readers were the first to know about the decision and why it had been made. And amid a torrent of complex federal policy changes, we’ve contextualized the impacts in Cumberland County, from immigration enforcement to Medicaid and SNAP cuts to frozen federal funding.
After serving as CityView’s interim editor-in-chief for the past six months, I’m excited to take on the job in a permanent capacity. While CityView has seen a few iterations, its core mission has always remained: to provide you with high-quality, free-to-read stories that no one else is telling about Fayetteville. Over the last year and a half, we’ve grown our audience and our partnerships across the state and received local and state awards for our reporting.
But our work is far from done. We’ve got big plans this year with more stories to tell, and I’m grateful for your role in what we do. We want our reporting to serve as a reflection of our community and a resource to help you better understand both what’s happening in our city and state and the local impacts of federal policy changes.
My favorite part about being a journalist is the unique opportunity we have to connect deeply with a person, a community, an idea — thank you to anyone who has taken the time to grab coffee with me and share what matters most to you and the city we live in. If you have any story ideas or feedback to share, let me know at mdevarajan@cityviewnc.com.
Before I leave you, I’d ask that you consider becoming a CityView member to support our work directly for as little as $10 a month. We do this work for you, but we can’t do it without you.
Thank you for your support,
Maydha Devarajan
Editor-in-Chief
