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“Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation:
I stand at the door in the morning, and lo, there is a newspaper,
in sight like unto an emerald.
And holy, holy, holy is the coffee, which was, and is, and is to come.”
Sarah Vowell, Take the Cannoli

Partners — with perks


“When we bought The Chatham News and The Chatham Record two and a half years ago,” publisher/editor Bill Horner III told me the other day, “the very first thing we did was to combine them to make it The Chatham News + Record. And that created some confusion. One of the things I heard was confusion about the new name ... and the other thing I heard was, ‘I didn't know Chatham County had a newspaper.’

“So obviously, you want to try to leverage anything you can to create brand awareness.

“And I'm not a coffee geek at all, but … Chatham County has a pretty cool coffee culture. A lot of neat, eclectic coffee shops. We did a really nice two-page photo essay and story about the coffee culture, and one of the things that I learned in that story was that Aromatic Roasters (in Pittsboro) was the only roaster of coffee in Chatham County. So, at that point the light bulb went off, and it took me about five seconds to connect the dots: ‘This is a place that we need to approach.’”

With support from one of his business partners, Kirk Bradley, who’s a coffee aficionado and an Aromatic Roasters fan, Horner reached out to Erin Munson, managing partner at Aromatic, and made the pitch for a co-branded breakfast blend, which was perfected after several experiments and taste tests.

The name was a natural — Chatham Brew — because the News + Record already had a thrice-a-week M-W-F newsletter by that name. Since late winter this year, Aromatic has been roasting small batches of the beans and packaging them whole, in 4-ounce and 8-ounce bags in the News + Record’s signature blue color.

Retail sales are in the works, but for now, the 8-ounce bags are subscriber premiums, and the 4-ounce bags are for the advertising rep to use on sales calls: “Here’s my card, and here’s some coffee,” Horner said.

“It’s brand awareness for The Chatham News + Record, and it’s brand awareness for our newsletter, which is something that we focus a lot of our energy on right now,” Horner said. “And for Aromatic, it's kind of a no-brainer as well, because we're doing a little bit of a trade-out with them, in terms of advertising for this, and if you're getting the coffee as a subscription premium you actually have to physically go to Aromatic to pick it up, and while you are there, you may buy something.”

Horner said he’s had discussions with a developer who’s planning a brewery in Siler City to do a Chatham Brew beer, and he’s talking with a local bakery about co-branding a sandwich. (It’s gotta be a wrap, right? Or maybe a Grilled Big Cheese.)

Horner’s advice for other newsrooms? Wake up and smell the opportunity.

“I’ve always lived by, ‘You have not, because you asked not.’ So just get creative,” he said. “We’ve got to shake a lot of trees. Look within your own market for opportunities to leverage and to co-brand.
​​
“Everybody should have one of these.” 

What else is on the business front?

 
First, the bad news: The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved the US Postal Service's request to increase mail rates on Aug. 29. The cost of mailing newspapers will rise 8.8 percent then, and that's trouble for weekly and rural newspapers that depend on mail delivery.

The options are few for the more than 100 newspapers in North Carolina that are published weekly or semi-weekly and will need to cover the added cost. “We’ll adjust subscription rates again before too long,” Ken MacDonald, publisher of The News-Journal in Hoke County, told me. “The adjustment will have to be modest, of course.”

Now, the better news: The Center for Innovation and Sustainability at UNC has a new tool that allows you to learn about, track and support the congressional bills that would bolster local newsrooms without reducing their independence. The site has multiple resources where you can read more about the issues, contact members of Congress and otherwise get involved. It will be updated regularly.

Three initiatives are active in Congress. Rebuild Local News, a coalition of about 3,000 local newsrooms throughout the country, supports the Senate version of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act. That bill, which has some bipartisan support, would provide tax credits — to consumers who subscribe or donate to local news outlets; to newsrooms for hiring; and to small businesses for advertising with local news sources.

    ➵ ICYMI: An optimistic view of what's happening with local news as newspapers struggle, from Chris Krewson, executive director of LION Publishers.
    ➵ News Unchained: More Outlets Going Back to Local Ownership. Mark Jacob, for the Local News Initiative at the Medill School at Northwestern.

News about the news


Sherry Chisenhall is stepping down as president and editor of The Charlotte Observer, saying it's a good time to "find some balance in life" after she led the newsroom through a pandemic, social justice unrest and political turmoil.

Chisenhall first came to The Observer in 1986 and did several writing and editing jobs before leaving to become managing editor, and later editor, of The Wichita Eagle. Rick Thames, who had hired her in Wichita, then brought her back to The Observer as managing editor in 2016. She became editor in 2017 and president in 2020.

“It makes it easier to step away when you feel good about the newsroom, the path that everyone is on,” Chisenhall told Observer legal affairs reporter Michael Gordon for his story on the transition

Kristin Roberts, McClatchy's senior vice president for news, praised Chisenhall and said that finding an "extraordinary editor to be the next leader" of The Observer "is my highest priority." (Here's the job posting.) ...

🗞️ The Thompson-High family, which has owned The News Reporter in Whiteville since 1938, has won the 2021 Tom and Pat Gish Award from the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. Publisher Les High; his father, Jim High; and Jim's father-in-law, Leslie Thompson, have demonstrated over many decades "how a community newspaper can adapt to the digital age, still perform first-class public service and even extend its reach beyond its home county,” said Al Cross, director of the institute.

High this year founded the Border Belt Reporting Center, which is using a three-year, $495,000 grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust to operate the free, online, nonprofit Border Belt Independent. That site serves Bladen, Columbus, Robeson and Scotland counties with reporting on poverty, health, mental health, race, education, the economy and other key issues.
    ➵ Read more about the Border Belt Independent in my March 24 newsletter.
    ➵ More about the Gish award and The News Reporter's history, including its 1953 Pulitzer Prize, is in the institute's announcement and this Border Belt Independent report.


The News Reporter and its community, by the way, are losing a little institutional memory this week. For more on that, keep reading...
 
🗞️ Sandra Hurley, regional publisher for the Mount Airy Media Group, has been elected president of the NC Press Association, along with a new slate of officers. Their terms begin Sunday.

🗞️ Queen City Nerve has launched a new membership program, with tiers that start at $5 a month or $50 a year. [Details.]

Well done


👏 Cory Vaillancourt of Smoky Mountain News interviewed key GOP strategist Karl Rove and got his advice for 11th District congressman Madison Cawthorn: "Don’t get too far over into campaigning nationwide. Don’t neglect the people back home.” Joel Burgess of the Asheville Citizen Times then looked at campaign finance data and reported how much of donors' money Cawthorn has been spending on that "nationwide" part.

👏 Many factors lie behind a bill that could dissolve the North Carolina High School Athletic Association — money, transparency, program penalties, eligibility and other governance questions among them. But don't discount a fight in a nonconference football game between Anson County and Richmond County in August 2019. Nick Stevens of HighSchoolOT has done extensive reporting on the issues involving the NCHSAA and what House Bill 91 would do, and Richard Craver of the Winston-Salem Journal filed this deep report on how the proposal has evolved and how it would change the playing field for high school sports.

👏 The case of a Brevard man whose bank accounts were depleted by questionable payments to a caregiver is an example of widespread elder abuse in Western North Carolina that is underreported and underprosecuted, experts told Clarissa Donnelly-DeRoven for a deep report on the issue in the Asheville Citizen Times.

👏 Durham is working toward ways to respond to non-violent 911 calls with mental health professionals and social workers, instead of law enforcement officers. Rebecca Schneid of INDY Week explains what's happening.

👏 A tech company based in San Francisco, Opendoor, has become a key player in residential real estate in Wake County — buying hundreds of homes as is, and selling most of them at markup after doing some upgrades. The company has also been under some regulatory scrutiny. Ben Sessoms and Tyler Dukes of The News & Observer report what it all means, for homeowners and for a very hot market.
 

👏 North Carolina news outlets won several honors in the 2021 AAN Awards given by The Association of Alternative Newsmedia. 
 
Mountain Xpress won second place in special sections for its 2020 Voter Guide, and INDY Week won second place in special publications for Everything You Wanted to Know About Coronavirus But You Were Too Afraid to Ask.

Third-place awards: Jordan Green (now of Raw Story) for Triad City Beat in the category of right-wing extremism coverage for The lost boys of Ukraine: How the war abroad beckoned American white supremacists; Jeremy Carballo Pineda of INDY Week in immigration coverage for Because of What I Did As a Three-Year-Old, I Have No Access to the American Dream (colleague Sara Pequeño won honorable mention for As Election Day Looms, José Chicas Feels Like He’s in Limbo); Sarah Edwards of INDY Week in music writing (I, II, III); and Justin LaFrancois, Ryan Pitkin, Grant Baldwin, Joshua Galloway and Yolián Ortiz of Queen City Nerve in multimedia for Black Lives Matter coverage (I, II, III, IV). Alex Farmer of Yes! Weekly won honorable mention in special publications for Triad Coloring Book.
 

👏 Clara Cartrette is retiring after 60 years as a reporter. Yes, sixty years — and all with the same newsroom, The News Reporter in Whiteville. Diana Matthews tells the story of an amazing career that began in the first year of the JFK administration.

Cartrette covered every beat at the paper at one time or another —except sports. The guy who did that, sports editor Dan Biser, also is retiring this week. Biser came to the newsroom as a reporter a mere 47 years ago. Matthews also tells his story.

Congratulations and a happy retirement to you both.
 
Bulletin board
 

Job postings
 

📌 Executive editor, The Charlotte Observer.
📌 Editor, Business North Carolina.
📌 Reporter, Axios Charlotte.
📌 Reporter, Triad Business Journal.
📌 Reporter, The Daily Record, Dunn.
📌 Producer, Charlotte Talks, and Producer, Morning Edition, WFAE, Charlotte.
 

Opportunities


📌 The Local that Works contest, with a grand prize of $20,000, rewards initiatives that “demonstrate the power of local media to inform, reflect, engage, educate, inspire, convene, unite and transform communities.” Cross-platform content, community engagement and fundraising efforts that expand and diversify audiences, and can be replicated, are preferred. [Learn more and enter by Aug. 23.]

📌 The Local Media Association’s Lab for Journalism Funding is accepting applications for its next cohort. Last year, 16 news outlets were coached in fundraising efforts that brought in $4.5 million. [Apply by Aug. 8.]
    ➵ Get LMA's fundraising tips, gleaned from last year's cohort.
 

Free help


📌 Julie Patel Liss, an independent investigative journalist and professor at Cal State LA, has shared a checklist of 14 questions that new (or any) journalists should answer before filing a story. I like No. 3 (back in the day, we called that “pencil checking”) and No. 5 (on source diversity).

📌 If you're being harassed and need some "online pest control," TrollBusters has an infographic that offers helpful actions for several scenarios.
That's all for now. Thanks for being here, and I'll see you next week. Take care. 
Eric

 
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