Three years ago, I had settled comfortably into retirement after a 50-year career in journalism.
I’d worked for two great regional newspapers in two vibrant communities, and I’d left the business before it fully plunged into a financial crisis that threatens its existence. I watched from afar as most newspapers (including my last employer, The Fayetteville Observer) laid off all but a handful of their reporting and editing staff. Hundreds of newspapers went out of business. It’s a grim trend.
Retirement, by contrast, was a gift, I thought — the opportunity for new experiences and challenges.
And then the phone rang. My old friend Tony Chavonne, who was the publisher of CityView at the time, wanted to talk. Fayetteville, he said, was on the brink of becoming a “news desert” — Fayetteville City Council and the other major government institutions weren’t being covered regularly and there was little oversight of how the people’s elected representatives were doing their jobs. We needed to do better.
Tony asked if I’d join an effort to create a new, daily news organization that would rebuild that oversight — a responsibility the Founding Fathers considered so crucial that they wrote press freedom into the Constitution’s First Amendment.
We created the 501(c)(3) nonprofit CityView News Fund, and we’ve made great progress. With the help of grants and individual donations, we now fund three full-time reporters in Fayetteville, who work alongside other staffers from The Assembly, a statewide news organization. We still have greater ambitions. And with your help, we can achieve them.
Our award-winning journalists cover local government, schools, health care, and the critical issues affecting Fayetteville and Cumberland County. CityView Media provides news reports through a daily newsletter CityView Today and on its website — for free.
The fund is dedicated to fostering community engagement and securing the financial resources to sustain our mission. We’ve been honored to receive several significant grants to help achieve our goals — the largest coming from the Cumberland Community Foundation. But our strongest support comes from the community itself, in donations large and small from our readers.
Much of that support is focused on the annual GivingTuesday campaign that’s facilitated by the Cumberland Community Foundation. We’re honored that we’ve been selected once again to participate in the campaign.
From 9 a.m. Nov. 25 to 5 p.m. Dec. 4, donations made to the CityView News Fund through the GivingTuesday initiative will be enhanced by $525,000 raised by the Cumberland Community Foundation. This additional support is made possible by Fayetteville New Car Dealers Association, Elizabeth “Beth” Keeney, Carol and Sammy Short, Daphne and Ray Manning, Will Gillis, the board of directors of Cumberland Community Foundation, Unrestricted Endowment Funds of Cumberland Community Foundation, and three anonymous donors.
Your generosity supports a remarkable journalistic initiative, a new way to fund strong coverage of the community and vigorous oversight of the institutions that serve the public. With your help, we can broaden our coverage and provide deeper insights into the issues that affect our lives. By supporting the CityView News Fund, you’re helping provide your fellow Cumberland County residents with the kind of strong, local news coverage that is our tradition.
The old business model for newspapers — local and national advertising revenue — has mostly died. Like communities everywhere, we need to chart a new course to fund local news coverage. We believe we’ve found the right formula for doing that in Cumberland County.
Here’s how you can help: Visit cityviewnewsfund.com to donate online or send a check in the mail to be received before the campaign closes at 5 p.m. Dec. 4. Checks must be made payable to “Cumberland Community Foundation” with “Giving Tuesday – CityView News Fund” written in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to Cumberland Community Foundation, P.O. Box 2345, Fayetteville, NC 28302. Checks can be dropped off at the Cumberland Community Foundation’s physical address at 308 Green St. in Fayetteville.
We hope you’ll join us in our quest to shape the future of local journalism, and to create the kind of news coverage — and accountability — that Cumberland County residents have long enjoyed and expected. That future is in all of our hands now.
Oh, and about that retirement: It’s still good, but it’s gone places I never expected. Turns out I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to journalism after all. I’m smiling as I write that.
Tim White is vice chairman of the CityView News Fund. For two decades, he was the editorial page editor of The Fayetteville Observer.
Read CityView magazine’s “Giving” November 2024 e-edition here.
Continue with enthusiasm. I, for one, appreciate your efforts to provide the readers with timely local news and interesting information for all. You are IT!