Reimagining Local News
“Reimagining Local News” is a new documentary series and campaign exploring the future of local journalism. Hosted by journalist and author Charles Blow, the series shines a light on the innovative people and models across the country that are rebuilding and strengthening local news ecosystems. It reveals what’s working and how community-driven, solutions-oriented approaches are creating a new path forward for local news. The series moves beyond the familiar “crisis narrative,” reframing the conversation around opportunity and the essential role that local news plays as a public good.
Panelists
Emily Bango
Development Director, Enlace Latino NC
Emily Bango is the Development Director for Enlace Latino NC, a statewide nonprofit digital news organization dedicated to serving North Carolina’s diverse Latino communities. She has over fifteen years of experience working in the nonprofit sector, with a specific focus on programming that supports independent media, journalists, and human rights defenders. She has a background in grants management, project design, and measuring impact for international assistance programs in the Americas, and is involved with community organizing for social and racial justice in North Carolina. She speaks Spanish and has deep expertise working in multicultural and multilingual settings.
Charles M. Blow
Charles M. Blow is an author, journalist, and political commentator, and is the inaugural Langston Hughes Fellow at Harvard University. A longtime Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times, Blow has also served as a contributor to CNN and MSNBC and anchored PRIME with Charles Blow on the Black News Channel. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling books Fire Shut Up in My Bones and The Devil You Know, which have been adapted into an opera and a documentary, respectively.
Lizzy Hazeltine
Director, North Carolina Local News Lab Fund
As Director, Lizzy Hazeltine leads the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund’s overall strategy and portfolio, supports funders to maximize their impact, cultivates connections among organizations in the North Carolina news ecosystem, and tracks and amplifies case studies and lessons learned. She also coaches teams in various national news transformation programs and supports industry-wide learning around revenue and DEI. Lizzy’s journalism training began at UNC Chapel Hill where she was a Morehead-Cain Scholar.
Ely Portillo
Executive Editor, WFAE
Ely Portillo is Executive Editor at WFAE. He is responsible for planning and editing daily news coverage, as well as newsletters, digital content and long-term projects. A Charlotte journalist for more than 15 years, Ely worked at the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute and the Charlotte Observer before coming to WFAE. Ely holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a master’s degree from UNC-Chapel Hill. He lives in south Charlotte with his wife and two children.
Tony Mecia
Founder and Executive Editor, The Charlotte Ledger
Tony Mecia is the founder and executive editor of The Charlotte Ledger, a digital publication that covers the Charlotte area. Supported mainly through paid subscriptions to its email newsletters, The Ledger has four full-time employees and a roster of experienced freelance journalists and covers a wide variety of local topics, including business, the arts, transit, growth and development, education and local government. Tony is a former business editor and reporter for The Charlotte Observer, where he won national awards for his coverage of the textile and airline industries. A journalist in Charlotte for more than 25 years, his writing has appeared in publications including the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and he appears weekly on local NPR station WFAE to discuss Charlotte-area business news.
Sam Spencer
Associate Director of Funder Partnerships, North Carolina Local News Lab Fund
Sam Spencer is a longtime communications and fundraising professional, public information officer, and former educator. As a consultant and staff member, Sam has raised millions of dollars for non-profit and political causes. In addition, Sam's public service roles include serving as chair of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Planning Commission, and as a member of many Charlotte-based boards including the Citizens Transit Advisory Group, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, and the Arts & Science Council. In 2022, he co-founded the award-winning local arts and culture newsletter Y'all Weekly. Sam graduated from Davidson College with a bachelor's degree in Political Science. He lives in Charlotte with his wife (Rebekah), Rottweiler (Willow), and Corgi (Sonny), and in his spare time he reports on both professional soccer and the United States' national soccer teams.
About the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund
The North Carolina Local News Lab Fund is a pooled fund established in 2017 to build a resilient news and information network that serves all of North Carolina. The Fund invests in a diverse range of news and community organizations so that everyone in North Carolina can find, trust, and use the information they need to thrive. As the home of Press Forward's local chapters in North Carolina, the Fund also deepens ongoing partnerships with regional and national funders while continuing to advance the vision of informed, connected, and thriving communities across the state. The Fund was founded by a group of local and national funders at the North Carolina Community Foundation and is now housed at NEO Philanthropy. Learn more at nclocalnews.org.
Join us in Supporting Local News
A North Carolina where everyone can find, trust, and use the information they need to thrive is possible. Let’s work together to build it.
Whether you’re investing in local news for the first time or looking to deepen your investments, the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund can help. To learn more about making local journalism and storytelling in NC a priority in your year-end giving or a focus for 2026, contact the Fund’s Associate Director of Funder Partnerships, Sam Spencer, at sam@nclocalnews.org.