One of my favorite things to do at Cardinal News is write thank you notes. There is something joyful in thinking about a person and what prompted them to give us a gift and then letting them know we appreciate their generosity.
Some write a comment or send a note letting us know why they are donating. These notes bring much cheer.
With each message and thank you, I am filled with a renewed sense that we are filling a much-needed role in our communities by providing our neighbors with fact-based and nonpartisan information upon which they can make decisions.
You may have heard me say before that when we launched Cardinal with a mission to use storytelling as a way to give voice to the people of our communities, no one asked us why. They understood. Our early supporters — please know how special you are — understood that when independent local news vanishes, gossip and misinformation fill the void.
We knew many of our neighbors in Southside and Southwest Virginia struggled to fill their grocery carts or pay their electric bills. Yet they need local news as much — perhaps even more so — than those of us who are more financially fortunate. We asked if you could chip in a little extra to support Cardinal so that we could keep this going and keep this growing.
Words escape me in trying to express how very thankful I am to the thousands of Cardinal readers and listeners who have stepped up. And to those I hope will help during our Giving Tuesday and end-of-year campaigns.
Until this fall, almost every dollar Cardinal has raised has come from within Virginia. What each of you has helped us accomplish has been phenomenal. And it has been recognized by our peers across the nation.
In September, I was honored to accept on behalf of this great Cardinal team and all of you in our flock the highest award from LION Publishers. During the first evening of its conference in St. Louis, we were awarded Business of the Year for our journalism, business model and financial stewardship.
I must confess I was a bit pumped with hubris when, on the second evening, I went to a cocktail hour overlooking the skyline and murmured thank you after many congratulations were offered.
What happened next re-centered me quickly.
I walked into a crowded room of other local independent online news publishers for a panel discussion on attracting national philanthropists to invest in our growth.
Duc Luu, Knight Foundation’s director of sustainability initiatives for journalism, whom I much admire, offered this advice to publishers:
“We do not get to decide that we’re important — our audiences do, our communities do. Who in your community needs you, and what is the evidence of that? Pair ‘I do this thing really well’ with ‘this is why/how my audience needs me’ to build a strong case.”
Luu’s comment is pinned to the top of my weekly to-do list so that no matter how hectic the day becomes, I remain centered on what is important.
We’ve come a long way in four years at Cardinal. First by focusing on building a news team, then by building a business team to support our journalism. We still have much growth to do on both teams.
But we also have much work to do in getting to know each of you, and what is important to you and to your community.
Local news has shifted swiftly in the last decade. While your rubber-banded paper no longer thuds on your doorstep in time for morning coffee, you can instead listen to our stories or scroll through them at all hours of the day and night.
It isn’t just the form of the product or its delivery or the timing that has changed local news.
Audiences have turned away from a newspaper as an institution telling people what is important. Instead, we seek now to listen to you so that we hear what is important to you.
In the coming weeks and months, I will share with you Cardinal’s plans for 2026. Sneak peek: It will be a transformative year. It will also be a year in which I hope you will feel comfortable sharing information about yourself and the people, places and topics that are important to you.
We recently brought on Laura Kebede-Twumasi as our audience engagement and retention manager. I met Laura earlier this year at an American Press Institute gathering in Nashville and was deeply impressed by her talents and skills in connecting with audiences. I am so grateful that fate (or at least her husband’s new job at Tech) brought her to the New River Valley at a time we were creating this role.
I hope you come to know and appreciate as much as I do the dynamic duo of Laura and the incredible Zac Shelton, our audience growth and acquisition manager.
We at Cardinal have much to be grateful for this year. And it starts with each of you.
Thank you.
