BY MILES LAYTON

We want to focus on community news in this neck of the woods – news that people want to read. We strive for accuracy and to be free from bias. 

If you want to read about the Edenton Tea Party chapter of the Daughters of American Revolution celebrating Constitution Day or a kid making teddy bears to share, read the Albemarle Observer. If you want to read about the latest meeting of your local school board, town council or county commission, read the Albemarle Observer. 

That said, if you want to read about a house fire that left a family homeless and how that tragedy contributed to global warming, then maybe the Albemarle Observer is not for you. If you want to read about how a certain statue unfairly paints the whole community with the same brush, then maybe we’re not the news source for you.   

Why is the Albemarle Observer website free? We view this website as a public service, because the information we provide is important and contributes to the community’s well-being. You should be able to read about a proposed tax increase or learn more about local issues to be better informed without any strings attached.

For those folks who contribute columns or community news to their local newspaper – you shouldn’t have to pay for a print edition or go through a paywall to see the stories you wrote for free to promote your group. 

A subscription is free at the Albemarle Observer. You can have the latest stories emailed to you. You even have the option of picking what kind of news you want in your inbox. There are no weird pop-ups; no navigating passwords, nor all the crap that comes with enduring the rigors of an online subscription that are common these days. Sign up for Albemarle Observer online or send us your email address, and we’ll do it – albemarle.observer@gmail.com

We’ve had a lot of success – A LOT! I’m not going to tip our hand, but wow! We just started this website to help our community – never imagined that it would grow so quickly. Many thanks to our readers.       

How did we grow so fast?

When my wife and I moved back to Edenton, we were greeted kindly by folks past and present who remembered our time as editor(s) for the local newspapers. 

Legacy mainstream journalism is dying before our very eyes. 

Time and again, people told us that their newspaper was not the same, that it missed stories, published major errors or that the news was slanted often in ways that distort reality – same as national news.  

Moreover, community news was routinely being left out in favor of irrelevant articles from other towns and places. 

And this common complaint: Who wants to read the same story in the weekly community newspaper when the daily regional newspaper already published that exact same story days earlier? What’s the point of subscribing to a weekly when the story already appeared in the daily? With a weekend publication schedule, local news published in the print edition is weeks old when it finally hits the streets.  

For all these issues and more, circulation of many community newspapers throughout the country has dropped dramatically. For some news outlets, the inability to meet its readers where they are via social media, which helps drive web traffic, puts the future of local journalism in serious jeopardy.   

It’s only a matter of time before our hometown becomes a news desert.   

Rather than do nothing, we created this website because we live in northeastern North Carolina. Initially, it was just to publish news that was not considered important by other news outlets. Examples of that would be news about the local chapter of the Daughters of American Revolution, the retelling of an historic event that celebrated a milestone, or a column former Chowan County Commissioner John Mitchener had written but was ignored by the regional news outlet, thus the local news outlet.

The original Albemarle Observer (published from 1911-1926) had the motto: “Look Forward, And Not Back.” The name lends itself to future growth. The way residents and visitors of the communities throughout the Albemarle Sound get information continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Our goal is to continue to build on a foundation of community while looking forward, not back.  

We encourage folks to reach out to us with story ideas, suggestions, etc., read our stories and share news of the Albemarle Observer with others.

One last note – we view this endeavor much the same as a church. Everyone is welcome to attend the Sunday sermon, and if you want to contribute when the collection plate is passed around, that would help us pay to upgrade the website. We value your input and help as we look into honing our content and exploring different business and nonprofit models. 

So if you want to contribute to “the cause” – we’re passing the collection plate.

Contact us at albemarle.observer@gmail.com 

Thanks for your support!