From the editor: What bankruptcy filing means — and doesn’t mean — for the N&O, Herald-Sun
No doubt many of you have read about our parent company’s decision to restructure under Chapter 11 of the U.S. bankruptcy code on Thursday.
As the local news industry has struggled to deal with dramatic shifts in our business model and in our readers’ habits in recent years, actions like these have become necessary and all too common. In fact, more than 20 U.S. newspaper companies representing hundreds of individual newspapers have undergone similar restructuring efforts since 2008.
Both The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun have been serving Triangle readers and communities for more than 150 years, and the actions taken this week are designed to help ensure that we — and other McClatchy news organizations across the country — are able to continue to do so for many years to come.
While the bankruptcy filing this week has no effective or immediate impact on our staff, our readers or relationships with our advertisers, it is important to note that there’s a lot at stake here.
We take our Constitutionally protected responsibility to inform our communities and produce journalism that holds power to account to heart, each and every day.
In the last month alone, we’ve published several stories that have shed a light on serious issues in our community, such as Josh Shaffer and Ashad Hajela’s story about the crime-infested Raleigh motels that have become last-resort housing for low-income people. The investigation found eight motels have averaged more than one 911 call a day since 2015, and the story prompted Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin to propose the creation of a fund that helps families pay a security deposit and first month’s rent.
Reporter Dan Kane detailed how Mako Medical CEO Chad Price padded his resume in his effort to get a seat on the Wake Tech board and made questionable campaign contributions via family members and others. As a result of Dan’s reporting, Price resigned from the board, and at least one local politician has returned contributions made to him.
Lynn Bonner’s reporting on North Carolina’s abysmal infant mortality rates for black children, who are more than twice as likely as white babies to die before their first birthday, is a heart-wrenching reminder of the inequities that still exist across our state and of the possible solutions to problems like these.
Our Journey Across the 100 project was published a few weeks ago in collaboration with our friends at The Charlotte Observer. Our visual journalists spent six months traveling more than 20,000 miles to all 100 N.C. counties to produce this ambitious Murphy-to-Manteo interactive listening tour of our state in this critical election year.
These are just some of the stories we’ve published in recent weeks that fulfill our mission of producing independent, fact-based, solutions-oriented, accountability journalism that serves our communities and our state.
And our commitment to this kind of work remains unchanged despite the economic challenges we face.
The only reason we are able to do this kind of work — now or in the future — is because of the support of our subscribers. Thank you for continuing to invest in local journalism and in this incredible team of journalists that I have the privilege of working alongside each day.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 4:54 PM.