Good morning all, it’s Wednesday March 25. We are less than 2 days away from the 2026 NC News and Information Summit! Along with the NC Open Government Coalition, we’ve been busy bees putting all the final touches on our annual gathering that will bring 300 local news and information friends together in Raleigh on Friday. This is the Summit’s fifth anniversary and we are beyond excited about this year’s line-up. It’s all possible because of you — the sponsors,
presenters, participants and volunteers who will shape our keynote, the Sunshine Awards, 3 dozen sessions and all the magic that happens in between.
We sold out last week, but if you’d like to get on the waitlist for last minute tickets, please let me know.
With the Summit top of mind, today’s edition of The Hub lays out all you need to know including:
How is AI reshaping news, information and communities in North Carolina? Our keynote explores challenges, opportunities and the role of local news in this moment.
Just announced: join us during lunch for a special live broadcast of Due South from WUNC News.
New this year: Table Talks! Get all your questions answered about fundraising, creator journalism, community engagement and more in these small group discussions led by experts in their fields.
And, got any local news-y props? Print editions of your paper, a reporter’s notebook, a stack of redacted documents? 📰 🎤 📝 Bring them along for our 5th anniversary photo booth! 📸
Glad you're here. Let's get started.
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Your Guide to the 2026 NC News & Information Summit |
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This Friday’s 2026 NC News &
Information Summit takes place at NC State’s McKimmon Center in Raleigh. A few need-to-know details:
Registration begins at 8:00 am. Parking is free and right outside the facility. Directions here. We’ll have coffee/tea and a light breakfast from 8:00-9:00. Get there early to eat and socialize.
Our keynote begins promptly at 9:00 am. The Sunshine Awards begins at 10:00 am.
Plan your day! With 28 sessions and table talks you’ll want to review the schedule ahead of time. Find the full schedule on Eventbrite or the Summit website.
After party 5:00-8:00: Continue connecting with friends new and old at the Summit’s after party, sponsored by The Assembly at Trophy Brewing's The Bend Bar, 853 W Morgan St, Raleigh.
Have questions ahead of Friday? Respond to this email or send a note to catherine@nclocal.org.
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We’re thrilled to welcome Poynter’s Alex Mahadevan to North Carolina for this year’s keynote address. Alex is a faculty member at Poynter and Director of the digital literacy project MediaWise. He’s also at the forefront of studying how AI is reshaping local news and information and the impact on newsrooms and audiences. Alex will begin our keynote guiding us through how AI is upending the news—and how we can reclaim it—and then lead a conversation with North Carolina panelists exploring both the transformative opportunities and the accountability challenges facing our profession, our state and the communities we serve. Our panel includes:
Dr. Siobahn Day Grady, an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Sciences at NC Central University and the founding director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research — the first dedicated artificial intelligence institute of its kind established at a Historically Black College or University.
Ricky Leung, strategic initiatives lead at Code the Dream where he works with the team to develop tools that empower journalists, civic information advocates and community members, like the NC legislative tracker UpState and the benefits and services tracker My Friend Ben.
Lisa Sorg, North Carolina reporter for Inside Climate News. An award-winning journalist for 30 years, Sorg covers energy, climate and the environment including the human and environmental impacts of AI and data centers in North Carolina communities.
Continue the conversation later in the day with these panels on AI:
AI for the Newsroom: a hands-on guide to NotebookLM and Pinpoint: Join Google News Initiative’s Iain Christie for a hands-on exploration of NotebookLM & Pinpoint. Learn how these AI tools can streamline research, transcription, optical character recognition and data analysis. Practical examples for reporting, content creation, and audience engagement.
Crafting your newsroom AI strategy: Effectively using AI in your newsroom is about more than just mastering prompt engineering or shelling out subscription fees for ChatGPT, Claude and other AI tools. In this session led by McClatchy’s Tyler Dukes, you’ll learn a framework for incorporating AI and automation into your workflows — in ways that won’t violate your editorial standards, degrade your journalists’ skills or force them to babysit a chatbot’s responses.
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Due South Live at the 2026 NC News & Information Summit
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NC Local & The NC Open Government Coalition are pleased to announce a special event at this year’s
Summit: a live broadcast of Due South from WUNC News. Co-host Jeff Tiberii and a panel of local journalists will discuss the week's top news stories from Raleigh and across the state. Featuring:
🎙️Dawn Vaughan, Capitol Bureau Chief, The News & Observer
🎙️Mary Helen Moore, reporter for Axios Raleigh
🎙️Ely Portillo, executive editor, WFAE
🎙️Felicia Sonmez, Growth/Development reporter, Blue Ridge Public Radio (BPR)
🎙️Mitchell Northam, Reporter, USA Today
Grab your lunch, take a seat and be a part of the live studio audience for this special broadcast.
During lunch, we’re also offering space for the following Circles of Practice:
Spanish-language and bilingual journalists Circle of Practice
Join us as we re-launch this Circle of Practice, a space for community and reflection for Latino and bilingual journalists. Come share what you’d like to the Circle to discuss and meet fellow journalists. Facilitated by Patricia Serrano. Sign up here for the Raleigh gathering and monthly virtual conversations starting in April.
Women in Journalism NC
The Women in Journalism NC Circle of Practice offers a space for women and non-binary journalists to connect, network and seek support. During the lunch, we’ll share ways to get involved and seek your input on a mentorship program. Facilitated by Chantal Allam.
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New this year: Table Talks!
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Ever attend a conference and wish you had more 1:1 time with the presenter? To ask questions or share experiences you might hold back with a
larger group?
This year’s Summit is making space for that through Table Talks. Scheduled for the final session block of the day and held in the General Session Room, you can join small group discussions facilitated by peers and experts. Choose from six different topics:
Maximizing intern partnerships for local news sustainability: Local outlets increasingly rely on interns not just as learners, but as meaningful contributors. Learn how you can structure intern programs that are ethical, educational, and genuinely helpful—while also preparing students for real-world journalism, communications, and community engagement work. Facilitators: Antionette Kerr (founder and publisher) and Addie Walser (intern), Davidson Local
Selling digital ads in 2026: challenges, tips, and what works: Ever get ghosted by a prospect? Or hear: "We don’t have the budget" "We advertise on social media!" Learn practical tips to reduce ghosting, confidently set your rates, and grow ad revenue. Facilitator: Adam Sessions, Broadstreet Ads
Fundraising AMA: Whether you're new to the revenue side of the newsroom or a skilled fundraiser, this table talk session is for anyone who is daunted by today's very challenging funding environment. Learn how to build confidence in finding and writing effective grants, and forging meaningful relationships with funders, major donors, the business community, and readers. Facilitator: Marcia Parker, VP Philanthropic Partnerships at the New York Times
How to hold media trainings for your community and build trust in the process: Many community members are interested in talking to the media but aren't quite sure how. By holding media trainings, you have an opportunity to connect and build trust with community outside of the work of doing journalism. Facilitators: Colleen Murphy, Open Campus; Chris Rudisill, Charlotte Journalism Collaborative
Creator journalism AMA: What does it take to build an engaging and sustainable brand in today’s creator-driven media landscape? Join two NC news creators for candid lessons in building a niche, growing your audience and experimenting with different platforms. Facilitators: Jeremy Markovich, NC Rabbit Hole; David Rushing, "The Mayor" of NBA Threads and 2025 Trusted Creator Fellow.
Find the full Summit schedule on Eventbrite or the Summit website. We can't wait to see you Friday in Raleigh!
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👏 Well Done! 👏
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👏 For Carolina Public Press, Lucas Thomae reported a three part series on “wandering officers” — the high number of law enforcement who are fired or resign following misconduct who are then rehired by other agencies, some continuing to do harm in new localities and others rising to leadership positions. CPP’s analysis of data available since 2022 identifies about 680 active law enforcement officers, whose previous agencies had dismissed them, who found new positions with more than 300 agencies across the state. But that number likely
doesn’t capture the full extent:
“The total number of wandering officers CPP identified likely undercounts the total cases because it doesn’t include anyone without a dismissal on their record, even if they resigned due to accusations of misconduct. It also wouldn’t include officers who were fired from an agency in another state or those dismissed for misconduct while working for a federal agency, such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
Thomae’s investigation provides a searchable map and database and explores why North Carolina falls short in data tracking and policies and solutions that could be put in place.
All available for republication:
👏 For Sunshine Week, The Assembly joined in on the “promptly as possible” public records test, asking all 16 public universities, the UNC System office and the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics for their Chancellor’s calendar for the day of March 3, 2026 (Primary Day). Korie Dean reports that more than half responded in a about a day and all requests were filled within two weeks.
This exercise is less about what the documents say and more about highlighting the lack of clarity in state law about what "promptly" means and how some agencies take weeks, months or longer to furnish simple records.
But it is also interesting to see what’s on these calendars (in between meetings and more meetings). Lee Roberts had a conversation with former basketball coach Roy Williams. Four Chancellors got together on Zoom to record a Women’s History Month episode of NC Central Chancellor Karrie Dixon podcast “Eagle Exchange.” UNC Greensboro Chancellor Frank Gilliam welcomed Food
Network personality Aarti Sequeira to town, where the campus was hosting “The Battle of the Chefs” between athletics, police and student affairs (campus police won).
The Assembly also collaborated on NC Local’s project last week to test “as promptly as possible” with municipalities across the state. Aside from a few that responded within hours or days, this test brought much more disappointing results. As of 3/17, 10 localities had not fulfilled requests for three hours worth of city clerks' emails. You can read a Q&A with lead reporter Daniel Walton about that project in last week’s edition of The Hub.
Help us recognize the important work being done across the NC news and information ecosystem. Send us “Well Done” nominations for any beat by replying to this email or emailing catherine@nclocal.org.
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Bulletin Board
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Jobs |
📌 Chief Development Officer, PBS NC, Durham 💰
📌 Production Director, Cherokee Scout, Murphy
📌 Western Wake County Reporter, The News & Observer, Wake County
📌 Reporter, The Mountaineer, Waynesville
📌 WUNC Listener Services Associate, WUNC, Chapel Hill & Durham 💰
📌 Managing Editor, The War Horse (Remote) 💰
📌 Folkways Editor, Inside Appalachia Reporting Corps & Program Editor, WVPB (Remote, Contract)
📌 Director of Programs, The Pivot Fund (Remote) 💰
📌 Communications Contractor, Lenfest (Remote considered) 💰
📌 Legal Fellow, Ishiyama Transparency in Government, NPR (Remote) 💰
📌 Manager, Donor Communications, NPR (Remote) 💰
📌 Platform Success & Training Manager, BlueLena (Remote) 💰
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Opportunities, events & resources |
📅 Finding and Using Public Records to Cover Immigration Enforcement: Hosted by the Fund for Investigative Journalism and Investigative Reporters and Editors, this webinar will provide concrete tools, resources and tips on how to get data and documents to cover U.S. immigration actions. The webinar will cover what data already exists and how to access it, how to innovate and create data, and what data journalists have the right
to access. Today/March 25, Noon ET.
📅 NC News Cafes: NC Local and dozens of local news partners across the state are hosting 15 NC News Cafes on or around April 9 to celebrate Local News Day. From Murphy to Manteo, you can join us. Sign up here if you’re a local news and information provider, community group or individual interested in supporting and/or partnering.
📅 Local News Day Trainings: The national team behind Local New Days has organized a series of trainings to help you maximize audience growth for the day of action and beyond. Sign up for Local News Day here to get updates, invites to weekly info sessions and access other resources.
📅 AI Series + 1:1 Coaching from Trusting News and the Lenfest Institute. Led by Lynn Walsh, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up for one-on-one coaching after the trainings to help you move from brainstorm to implementation.
How to create a trustworthy AI use policy
March 26, 1 pm ET
Develop or refine clear, values-driven policies that guide how your newsroom uses AI tools responsibly. Register here
How to create trustworthy AI use disclosures
April 8, 1 pm ET
Explore when and how to disclose AI use in ways that build credibility and audience trust. Register here
Use AI literacy to build trust with your audience
April 29, 1 pm ET
Learn how to educate the public about AI - not just how you are using it - but what it is, how it works and how it's being used in the community. Why? People say they want this. Register here
📅 OFF THE RECORD: Tienes 60 segundos... Haz que cuenten. ¿Eres periodista, comunicador, creador de contenido, miembro de nuestra organización? Esto es para ti. El miércoles 15 de abril de 6:00 PM a 8:00 PM, Organización de Periodistas Hispanos de las Carolinas invitamos a un encuentro Off The Record:
🗣️ Un networking donde cada asistente tendrá 1 minuto para presentarse, compartir quién es y qué hace.
📍 Nos vemos en Manolo’s Bakery, 4405 Central Ave Suite C, Charlotte, NC 28205
Abierto para miembros y no miembros de la Organización de Periodistas Hispanos de las Carolinas.
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That's it for today, thank you for reading. As always, know you are appreciated for all you do to support the North Carolina local news and information ecosystem. —Catherine
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