FROM THE EDITOR: Keep Pushing
Getting the facts right will always matter -- ensuring that we learn how to have respectful, productive debates about those facts requires a lot of work.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
When I left my home in North Carolina nearly 50 years ago to move to California and attend seminary, I couldn’t begin to imagine where life would take me, and the unpredictable turns that would emerge.
It didn’t take long to find out that pursuing dreams doesn’t follow a straight line.
I left seminary after a year, when a crisis of faith led me to re-evaluate what mattered. Religion, not so much. Academia and writing, much more so. That realization led me across the San Francisco Bay to attend graduate school in Berkeley.
It proved to be a way station as the opportunity arose to further my studies at the University of Chicago. Another evolution in my journey came when my wife and I moved to Columbia, South Carolina, where I taught and worked on my Ph.D. (The unfinished draft of my dissertation still sits in my filing cabinet at home.)
The dissertation was never finished because in 2000, my life evolved again when the opportunity to work as a copy editor, and then a journalist, in Washington, D.C., arose.
That move proved decisive, as I found in journalism my life’s work. It required the curiosity of a scholar, the rigor of a researcher, and a passion for understanding people. Over the next 20 years I covered everything from autos and education to philanthropy and terrorism at a number of national publications.
It’s what I love about journalism — every day, one wakes up and often has no idea what you’ll be writing about, where you’ll be, or who you’ll be meeting.
The rapid pace, tight deadlines, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge suited me.
So, too, does the opportunity to play the long game and spend months on complex stories. Some of the more-memorable I’ve pursued — homelessness, public education, and more recently, data centers and emerging technologies — continue to shape my work.
I trained under some of the leading journalists working today at publications that included: National Journal, Philanthropy, The Christian Science Monitor, as well as U.S. News & World Report. Each stop opened unexpected opportunities to strengthen my skills and work in new and exciting environments.
It also led to opportunities.
In 2022 Phil Jenkins offered me the responsibility of taking over the Opinion Page at the Free Lance-Star. To sit in the same chair that Paul Akers held was an honor. To deliver opinion pieces that shaped the public discussion about Spotsylvania’s book-burners still ranks as one of the highlights of my career. And to find and publish truly great writers, like Shaun Kenney, proved inspiring. Others included Dennis Wemm, whom I met over the fence our homes share and whose words taught me how to watch theatre; and the incomparable Drew Gallagher, whose weekly columns bring much-needed levity to our lives.
And then there is Donnie Johnston. He’s a local icon, and blesses the Advance with his wit and insight.
Journalism is a volatile career, however, and change comes quickly with little notice.
As happened to too many Free Lance-Star journalists, I was let go with no warning for reasons that had nothing to do with the work, and everything to do with an ownership group whose solution to declining revenues was letting people go. The idea that funding great journalists and supporting their work might actually grow income doesn’t appear to have figured into their thinking.
Great journalism, however, does still matter. And because I believe strongly in that, I founded the Fredericksburg Advance and for the past three-and-a-half years had the honor of leading a phenomenal team of writers.
I am exceptionally proud of the work that Adele Uphaus and myself have produced. The Advance has been the leader in breaking the most important stories in this region, holding public officials to account, broadening discussions around new technologies and their infrastructure, and creating a space where a range of thoughtful voices are free to express themselves.
The thought that life would hold yet another opportunity didn’t cross my mind. How could things possibly be better?
Well, opportunity has again knocked.
Beginning today, I am embarking on one of the greatest opportunities of my professional career — building a new state-wide news organization.
The Virginia Free Press will launch this summer, and Advance readers will be familiar with the core principles that drive it. Most important — multi-partisan journalism. That is, a commitment to thoughtful ideas from a wide range of insightful thinkers across the political spectrum, as well as news reporting that is committed to fairly representing the complexity of thoughts and issues that sit at the heart of the stories we cover.
Multi-partisan journalism is grounded in the belief that how we talk about issues matters most of all. And the Advance has been a leader in modeling what this looks like.
I will carry that model to the Virginia Free Press. And it is my hope that the movement we started here with the Advance will grow.
Respectful, responsible discussion, after all, has no end point. It is rather a challenge that we all must keep pushing toward.
Let me close by saying to our readers, thank you. Your support sustained me in difficult days, your criticism strengthened my thinking, and your willingness to sit with conversations and stories that you may disagree with was inspiring.
You have proven that multi-partisanship is both viable, and appreciated. And that will be with me as I embark on the next evolution in my career.
The Advance will go forward. For a while, I will be writing a weekly column. The region, after all, remains my home. And I look forward to continuing to be a productive member of it in the way I know best.
Practicing my life’s work for those I call neighbors and friends.
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