Comments on: Does N.C. Abhor a Vacuum?

By: Ryan Thornburg

Ryan Thornburg — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:39:16 +0000

Paul, Good point about the Carrboro Citizen and The Independent. And also a good point about eastern NC. Local coverage there seems to be dominated by Freedom's ENC.com My concern is that with the merger of the O NO political staffs that we are severely outgunned in the battle to hold powerful people accountable. An opportunity for a network of NCians to cover what their local pols are doing in Raleigh and DC? An opportunity to train them? An opportunity to connect them?

By: Paul Jones

Paul Jones — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:08:12 +0000

The Carrboro Citizen is already doing as much coverage of this area – Chapel Hill/Carrboro – as the McClatchy-owned Chapel Hill News. I haven’t seen exactly how badly the CH News was cut, but it won’t take much for the Citizen to grow into a real competitor especially with McClatchy choosing to be one streamlined state-wide paper with the Observer-News-Observer (aka O NO).

The Independent often rivals the N and O in investigative stories and in opinion. The Chapel Hill Magazine has picked up the wedding picture business and does it that in color.

What’s common about these papers/magazine? They are completely advert supported.

Now the question that I have is who will cover the developments in the Eastern part of NC especially changing areas like those served by ECU’s medical school and services? Between there and the coast there is a large under-served population

By: Andy Bechtel

Andy Bechtel — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:28:28 +0000

The N&O is apparently pulling the plug on the “West” edition covering Chapel Hill/Carrboro and Durham. So there’s probably room to fill in whatever coverage is lost in that move.