From the editor: Here's how the Fayetteville Observer impacted the community in 2022

The Fayetteville Observer’s newsroom staff strives every day to provide you, our readers, with impactful journalism.

It’s a responsibility that we don’t take lightly.

Looking back on the past year, I’m proud of the work our newsroom accomplished in 2022, from meaningful storytelling and community engagement to fundraising and impacting change at the state level.

Here’s just some of what we did in 2022.

And watch this space. We have plenty of more good work coming in 2023.

Investigation leads to class-action lawsuit

An investigation by a team of USA TODAY Network journalists, including from the Observer’s newsroom, revealed neglect and abuse inside the broken system of child psychiatric centers in North Carolina.

The Locked Away project, which took six months to complete, resulted in child advocates, families and the NAACP filing a case in federal court against the state of North Carolina in December. The lawsuit seeks to transition children from these institutions to support services in their own communities instead.

More:Punching, predators, neglect. Traumatized NC children suffer inside dismal psychiatric centers.

Bill Shaw fund

Since 1923, the Observer has partnered with the Salvation Army of the Sandhills to raise money for the Bill Shaw Salvation Army Christmas Fund.  

The money raised during this annual holiday drive helps fund the good work the Salvation Army does all year long, from sheltering and feeding the unhoused to job training and after-school programs. In 2022, we raised at least $146,000 (we’re not done counting yet), surpassing last year’s total of about $126,000. That’s money that goes right back into our community, and we’re honored to be embarking on the 100th year of our partnership in 2023.

Engaging with our readers

In 2022, we brought our newsroom to you, our readers, with two “mobile newsrooms” in the community.

Observer journalists worked for one week in April at Smith Recreation Center, and in August at Cliffdale Recreation Center, to bring the newsroom to you.

Both mobile newsrooms allowed us to meet our readers in person, hear their concerns, and find out what the most crucial issues are in our community. And we wrote stories based on what we learned during those two weeks.

We came away from both experiences feeling a stronger connection with the people who make it possible for us to do the work we do every day.

Opinion editor Myron Pitts and I are working to organize even more of these in 2023, so be sure to keep an eye out for those announcements.

In addition to the mobile newsrooms, we held a series of virtual audience listening sessions, where we invited readers to share their feedback on the work we’re doing at the Observer. These, like the mobile newsrooms, also proved valuable and led to better coverage and story ideas.

Market House saga

In a three-part series that ran in February and March, former Fayetteville Observer investigative reporter Kristen Johnson explored the past, present and future of Fayetteville’s Market House, a building of classic architecture in the heart of the city where, among its many purposes, enslaved people were once sold alongside chattel.

Johnson spent two months on the project, learning the history of the building, its significance to the state’s entrance into the union, and the infrequent, but still notable times where human beings were sold as part of estates. She spoke to activists who want to see the structure razed, to community members who passionately advocate for its preservation and to members of the Fayetteville City Council who voted to repurpose it. 

As the nation grapples with conversations about racism, a new conversation about the Market House's purpose in Fayetteville is even more relevant.

More:From slave auctions to an execution, the Market House holds a dark role in Fayetteville's past

Election coverage

Election years are always busy times for journalists, but 2022 proved even busier with the city of Fayetteville's 2021 municipal elections rescheduled to 2022 because of a delay in U.S. Census results.

We started early. In April, we partnered with Fayetteville Technical Community College and the Greater Fayetteville Chamber to host a primary candidate forum. We followed that with our primary voter guide and live election coverage from the night of the primary in May and the City Council general election in July.

In addition to our general election voter guide in November, The Fayetteville Observer and partner WIDU radio 99.7 FM worked together to produce a series of interviews with candidates on the ballot in Cumberland County this election season.

As part of the Candidate Conversations series, WIDU and Fayetteville Observer staffers spoke with candidates for U.S. Senate and House, the North Carolina General Assembly, judicial races, Cumberland County Sheriff, Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, proponents and opponents of the bonds and the initiative to change Fayetteville's charter to allow for more at-large seats.

Impactful storytelling

Residents and people who grew up there are fighting to preserve the legacy of one Fayetteville neighborhood. For the Fayetteville natives who called Savoy Heights home, the memories made there, the culture established, and the properties kept in the family are now even more important as current residents work to preserve the legacy of the neighborhood and protect the people still living there in the face of imminent change.

This was a great read and a story that wasn’t really on our radar until we learned about it during one of our audience listening sessions.

Strengthening our relationships with Black readers

If there was one overarching theme for our newsroom in 2022, it was our efforts to better connect with and serve Black readers.

The Observer participated in the yearlong UNC-Knight Foundation Table Stakes program to help our newsroom identify challenges and opportunities to reach new audiences and better engage readers. 

We chose to formalize our efforts to reach Black readers, and in doing so we’ve made what I believe will be lasting changes in our newsroom. From audience listening sessions, to our mobile newsrooms, to conducting a source audit, to ensuring we’re out in the community more, our newsroom has taken that challenge to heart. The staff has been passionate about confronting implicit biases and learning how we can do right by readers we, as a paper, have neglected to various degrees in the past.

This is an ongoing effort — you’ll see plenty more in 2023.

More:From the editor: The Fayetteville Observer is working to better serve Black readers

What’s next for us?

I’m excited about what we have planned for 2023. Some of that includes:

• A new monthly radio show featuring Observer journalists on WIDU, which will debut later this month.

• We also have a fantastic Black History Month project — Future Black History Makers — in partnership with Cumberland County Schools. We'll have more about that at the end of January.

I hope you see the value in the work we’re doing here at the Observer and that, if you aren’t already, you take the opportunity to subscribe and support our journalism. I appreciate all of our readers, and I love hearing from you. Shoot me an email at bhutson@fayobserver.com if you’d like to share your thoughts with me. Thanks for reading.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville Observer community impact in 2022