You can learn something about someone by just watching.
Tony Chavonne, believe it or not, is one of few words, but Tony Chavonne always is thinking, and particularly about this city, this county and this community. He’s passionate about this community and making it better for all.
And he gave much thought to launching a digital newspaper long before CityView became a community news source on March 14, 2022.
“How do you think a digital newspaper would go here?” Chavonne was asking me somewhere around the fall of 2021. He was wondering about my thoughts of the best way to go about it and what would appeal to those who might find an alternative to what was becoming something of a community news desert, and particularly where the business of local government was lacking in coverage.
Spend the better part of your life in the newspaper business and you come to have something of an idea about hometown news, from informing the community about everything including business, education, health, lifestyle, crime, court trials, sports, politics, and local and state government. And not to mention those features about people.
“It won’t be easy,” I told Tony Chavonne. “But I believe it would do well and be good for the community.”
Corporate America has done a lot of damage to newspapers since somewhere around 2017, from slashing newsroom staffs to thinning print editions that have become only a shell of what once they were. When the ink of newsprint runs in your veins, the demise can be painful to witness. And disconcerting for those folks who came up holding a daily newspaper in their hands.
‘Noodle on it’
Tony Chavonne and Bill Kirby Jr. can tell you something or two about great newspapers because we worked for not only the state’s oldest newspaper in The Fayetteville Observer but once one of the finest newspapers in this state and beyond.
I started out as a part-time sports reporter in 1971 with the Observer and went full-time with The Fayetteville Times, the morning newspaper that Fayetteville Publishing Co. launched in 1973, when the newspaper was along Hay Street with the old Goss printing press.
“If you have the opportunity to work for Ramon Yarborough,” Mama told me in 1973, “then, Billy, you take that job. You will never work for a better man than Ramon Yarborough.” And Mama told her son right.
Tony Chavonne started out on the circulation docks part time before bringing his business degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to the newspaper’s executive offices, where he first was business manager and later became its general manager under publisher Ramon Yarborough.
There is no place like the rush and adrenaline of being in a newsroom and following the pulse of a community, no matter if it is a crime unfolding in the city, a hurricane or a snowstorm heading Fayetteville’s way or election night and waiting to gather the precinct votes and then watching the printing press roar into the morning hours with carriers delivering the newspaper to your doorstep or front yard or newspaper box for you and your morning coffee.
“Noodle on it,” Tony Chavonne was saying about the prospects of a digital publication in that fall of 2021. He was “noodling” on the idea, too, and knowing Tony Chavonne, I knew he wouldn’t “noodle” long.
CityView would become a reality on March 14, 2022, with the late Lorry Williams, former executive editor of The Fayetteville Observer, as managing editor. The publication would include some of us, too, who left our traditional newspaper careers behind to include investigative reporter Greg Barnes, myself and Bobby Parker, who today serves as CityView’s editor.
Others include former Observer reporter Jason Brady and newspaper icon Earl Vaughan Jr. Scott Parker, who was part of the Observer copy desk before retiring, is coming aboard with his editing talent, and we have some talented reporters in correspondents Jami McLaughlin, Jason Canady and Janet Gibson, another gifted journalist who can write a feature with heart. And there’s Cindy Burnham, who never saw a photo opportunity she didn’t like. And not to forget our talented Ben Sessoms, who covers everything from the Fayetteville City Council to education, health or whatever the assignment. Nor to forget Tim White, former Observer editorial editor, who serves on the CityView News Fund advisory board and has been a supporter since Day 1.
It’s not just the journalists.
It’s the support team, too,. You may not see their bylines, but they are the unsung talents behind our words and photographs who go about the business of our digital publication and monthly CityView magazine with little fanfare. If bylines are the glitter, they are the glue.
The past year saw CityView recognized by the N.C. Press Association with the prestigious Henry Lee Weathers Freedom of Information Award that included Greg Barnes’ investigative reports on the potential sale of the Fayetteville Public Works, ethics violations brought against the former police chief, and the city’s attempt once to deny CityView access to a Fayetteville City Council meeting.
Epilogue
Today, CityView embarks on its second year of covering the news in this community, and with plans to expand coverage to include more reporting on education, health care and Fort Bragg. We also are developing an internship program with local universities to cultivate future journalists.
The old, four-term city mayor is “noodling.”
Something none of us need “noodle” about is that CityView couldn’t have done any of this without you, our loyal subscribers and readers. So many of you believed in us from March 14, 2022, and from this day of March 15, 2023, forward, our plan is to be there for this community every day.
Well, I have columns to write.
And the old mayor likely has “noodling” to do along Breezewood Avenue.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
