My wife Rachel and I were in the kitchen, making dinner, when she asked me to explain the business structure that includes CityView Magazine, the daily CityView Today newsletter, and the CityView News Fund — the nonprofit that supports most of the CityView reporting staff.
It was a good question that should have gotten a good, and simple, answer. Instead, we launched into a conversation that sounded like Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine.
The roadblock to a simple explanation was the News Fund, which began after Tony Chavonne, then publisher of CityView, decided to publish a daily newsletter that revived journalism in Fayetteville.
“How could it be called CityView News Fund,” Rachel wondered, “and not be under the same management umbrella as the magazine and daily newsletter?”
Good question, I realized — especially after the magazine and daily newsroom became part of The Assembly, the statewide news organization fostering good, in-depth journalism across North Carolina.
My amazing bride is one of the smartest people I know, with a string of academic and professional letters after her name to prove it. If Rachel didn’t get that the CityView News Fund was an independent nonprofit whose only goal is good journalism in Cumberland County, who would? Who’s on first?
Turns out I wasn’t the only one who’d had that thought. We talked about it at News Fund board meetings, and most of the members reported similar conversations, even with some donors.
It was time for a name that better expressed who we are and what we’re doing. This month, we become the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville, a more descriptive name that better explains what we do. In practice, nothing has changed. We still raise money to support good journalism in Fayetteville. We still support the reporting staff at CityView. And we still have greater ambitions — a bigger, more robust daily report on Fayetteville’s and Cumberland County’s government and institutions, with a goal of holding public officials accountable to taxpayers and residents.
When we ask for your support, it should be clear that you’re helping underwrite good journalism in your own community, and nowhere else. That includes recent stories on the sudden halt of construction of a downtown performing arts center or the move of a proposed recycling business after strong neighborhood opposition. Your contributions to the News Foundation stay here in Cumberland County, supporting stories like those, no matter who owns the magazine and newsletter. With our new name, we’re making that clear.
All of this would have been unnecessary even a few years ago. Journalism, for my lifetime, my parents’ lifetime and my grandparents’ lifetime (which puts us back in the 19th century), had the same business model. Newspapers — and later, radio and television — reported the news every day. They were funded by advertising purchased by local, state and national businesses.
It was a good and lucrative business, allowing local media to hire big staffs and provide thorough coverage. The best of them also channeled some profits into support of local institutions and initiatives — as longtime Fayetteville residents know well.
That changed in the internet era. The old business model is disappearing. Every week, across the country, a couple more newspapers print their last edition and die. Advertising dollars that supported them go to internet giants like Google and Facebook, which have no stake in our communities, no interest in supporting them.
The definition of good journalism hasn’t changed, but business models have. In communities across the country, journalists and people who value strong news coverage are writing new business plans and creating new models. Most include support from nonprofits. Some are entirely nonprofit organizations. Others are hybrids, finding some advertising support in their communities as well as getting financial help from foundations and individual donors. That’s what we’ve created in Fayetteville — a daily news report that emphasizes coverage of key institutions, supported by advertisers and donors large and small.
That appears to be journalism’s business plan of the future: news organizations will be as good as their readers want them to be. The news report may be available at no charge — as it is at CityView — but it won’t be great unless the community wants it to be and is willing to support it.
So thank you, Fayetteville, for your support as we build a new way to report the news. You can find the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville online at faynews.org. You can contact us at info@faynews.org. Or you can reach me at timowhitenc@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you.
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Faith Issue” April 2025 e-edition here.
