By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
The original idea, back in March, was to start a statewide tech newsletter as an offshoot of The FXBG Advance.
Advance Co-founder Martin Davis was editor-in-chief at the time, and had already scored significant donations/sponsorships/ad sales for The Advance from STACK Infrastructure, ranked #20 in Data Centre Magazine’s Top 100 data center companies, and from the Hirschler Law Firm, whose managing partner Charlie Payne represents nearly all the data center projects in the Fredericksburg region.
Davis socialized regularly with Payne as part of a guys-only drinking club in downtown Fredericksburg; Payne’s sister Julia, a longtime political consultant and managing editor of the D.C.-based Contrarian News, briefly served on The Advance’s advisory board.
Davis had been touting the virtues of data centers in his Advance columns for at least a year, and at times even ran “sponsored content” from data center companies. According to Advance board minutes and emails, at some point in spring 2026, Stack Infrastructure wanted to take the relationship with The Advance to the next level and offered to finance a tech magazine to be run by Davis as a sort of companion publication.
The point of contact at STACK was Chief External Affairs Officer Kevin Hughes, a Fredericksburg resident, 2013 University of Mary Washington political science grad, and board member of the Fredericksburg Economic Development Authority. The amount discussed, according to Advance Publisher Leigh Anne Van Doren—mentioned in an email exchange with then-Advance board treasurer Craig Vasey—was $300,000.
The original plan was for Davis to draw a salary from the STACK Infrastructure financing/contribution/sponsorship for launching and running the new tech publication, while then-Managing Editor Adele Uphaus took over the reins at The Advance and used what had been Davis’s Advance salary—from advertising, paid Substack subscriptions, and other donations—to pay more part-time contributors and fill the content void left by Davis’s shift in focus.
None of that happened.
Instead, Davis took the money and ran, sort of—announcing his resignation as Advance editor-in-chief back in May and joining forces with another Advance co-founder and advisory board member, Republican operative Shaun Kenney, the newly-hired executive director of the Jefferson Forum, a small, Virginia conservative think tank with ties to the Heritage Foundation. The two moved quickly to start The Virginia Free Press, a new and altogether separate 501(c)4 nonprofit corporation with no connection to The Advance.
The LLC application to the State Corporation Commission for The Virginia Free Press was filed April 22, 2026, with one of Kenney’s family members listed as the registered agent.
Uphaus, meanwhile, wasn’t interested in editing The Advance on her own, so left to join the reporting staff at another local online newspaper, The Fredericksburg Free Press, which shares a name, but nothing else, with Davis’ and Kenney’s new tech and politics publication.
Davis’s last day at The Advance was May 31. The writer of this piece—Steve Watkins, an author, investigative journalist, and longtime journalism educator—took over as editor on June 1.
(The Advance and The Fredericksburg Free Press are also nonprofit publications—The Advance under the auspices of Fredericksburg Parent Gives, the nonprofit arm of Fredericksburg Parent & Family Magazine. Leigh Anne Van Doren, the founder and longtime owner and publisher of Fred Parent, is on the board of Fred Parent Gives, and is publisher of The Advance. Van Doren and Watkins announced last month that no money or advertising from data centers or those who represent them will be accepted in The Advance once current ad contracts expire. You can read about that decision HERE.)
Davis’ and Kenney’s Virginia Free Press, now three months old, is an email newsletter published five mornings a week. It links to a bare-bones website, has a decidedly pro-data-center slant, and attracts a preponderance of Republican followers on their various social media sites.
Typical headlines:
“What Do We Lose If Virginia Turns Away from Data Centers?”
“Taxpayer Group: Some state tax policies disadvantage data centers.”
“Amazon Joins Move to Address Public Concerns.”
“Mimicry, Data Centers, and the Discovery of Moderation.”
“’I’m a Win-Win Guy’: The VFP Interview with Charlie Payne.”
The VFP, as they like to call themselves, does just enough coverage of data center critics and straight data center news to give them a measure of balance (“Data Centers’ Neighbors Weigh in on How to Manage Them,” “Suffolk Approves Temporary Ban on Data Centers”), but day in and day out, the Virginia Free Press champions the push for AI and continued data center expansion across the Commonwealth.
Davis is the editor, and Kenney, who also edits a conservative online magazine called The Republican Standard, is a regular contributor. Kenney previously held positions as vice president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life, senior adviser to Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, and chair of the Virginia Republican party. He and the Republican Standard have been paying to promote the Virginia Free Press on social media, especially Facebook, to boost readership and subscribers.
Besides the heavy focus on data centers, the VFP primarily consists of summaries of and links to articles and columns in other publications around the state. Listed content areas are “Education, Technology, Economic Development, Politics, Opinion, and Culture.” The newsletter also includes Firing Line-type point/counterpoint posts—Republicans vs. Dems—and occasional soft news features.
Davis and Kenney talk and write a lot about their “multi-partisan” approach to news and opinion writing, a sort of both- or all-sides-ism that is supposed to foster a more civil society but pays scant attention to the undemocratic forces at work in the Trump administration and many of the MAGA states, or to their existential threats to American democracy, or to the precipitous rise and unchecked wealth and power of the billionaire class, or to Trump’s foreign wars and fealty to Russia and Putin, or to the escalating healthcare crisis, or to the accelerating degradation of the environment.
VFP opinion pieces, and no small amount of the reporting, draw heavily from Kenney’s Jefferson Forum, the conservative American Enterprise Institute, and the right-wing Jefferson Council, Washington Examiner, and Heritage Foundation—multi-partisanship notwithstanding.
As far as financial backing, or who else might be involved in The Virginia Free Press, there’s no way to know. The VFP website has no masthead, no advertisements, and no “About” page with a list of sponsors or financial contributors—standard features in legitimate news publications.
Kenney’s family member, the registered agent, is listed with the State Corporation Commission as “Initial Director of the Corporation,” but doesn’t appear to be otherwise involved, unless it’s behind the scenes doing IT work for the publication. No other corporate officers are named on the SCC application. There’s no office. The LLC address is Kenney’s home near Charlottesville.
Shortly after Davis left The Advance back in May, another area publication, The Potomac Local News, wrote a story about his departure, “Martin Davis Leaves Fredericksburg Advance, Launches Virginia Free Press.” Davis talked a lot in the article about his work at The Advance, his appreciation for Uphaus and her stellar reporting, and his virtuous multi-partisanship.
But he wouldn’t tell the interviewer how he was financing his new publication.
“Davis declined to comment on funding for the Virginia Free Press,” the writer, Potomac Local News editor Uriah Kiser, reported. “Multiple sources indicate that data center company STACK Infrastructure is backing the venture. STACK, a major global developer and operator of hyperscale data centers, has been a significant sponsor of the Fredericksburg Advance through grants supporting its opinion columns.”
That article ran on June 1, 2026. Davis—and Kenney, and former Germanna Community College President and Advance adviser Janet Gullickson, and STACK Infrastructure’s Chief External Affairs Officer Kevin Hughes—have all been tight-lipped ever since about who’s bankrolling The Virginia Free Press, and what sponsors might be getting for their investment.
When Davis appeared recently as a guest on Virginia Public Media’s current-events podcast with journalist Michael Pope to talk about data centers in the Fredericksburg region—and spent time disparaging local anti-data center activists as being unrepresentative and ill-informed—he made no mention of who was paying his salary, or where VFP was getting its money.
The Advance has reached out to Davis, Kenny, Gullickson, Hughes, and STACK’s Office of Public Relations—multiple times to Davis and Hughes—to ask about the $300,000 sponsorship discussed back in the spring. We also asked who’s funding the Virginia Free Press, who’s on staff, and who serves on the board of directors, a requirement for all nonprofits.
And we asked if VFP would be selling advertisements going forward, and what if any content agreement they have with whoever is providing the funding.
We’ve received no response so far, other than a call from Shaun Kenney to the Advance publisher a few weeks ago to complain about us writing this article.
***
Steve Watkins is editor of The FXBG Advance. You can contact him HERE.
It would be fantastic to also explore who with in the city both elected, appointed and on city payrolls are also deeply in bed with data center money. Currently, former elected, appointed and city staff! Thorough is always best. If you’re going to expose the entire cast of characters not just some you want to hit, that’s good journalism!
Well this was informative. Thank you.
Sad, but informative. Look forward to hearing any response, but this certainly explains a lot.
I continue to wish Ms Uphaus well. Her work has been a bright light on the local scene.
As for the others, I think for once, I'll follow my Mother's advice for when I didn't have anything nice to say.....