Kyle Villemain

I thought I knew North Carolina pretty well when I set out to launch The Assembly. But you can discover a lot more about your home state in five years of deep reporting. Since founding The Assembly in 2021, I’ve learned about the absurdity of the state’s approach to selling booze; the fight to grow our seaports along with our economy; and more than I ever wanted to know about the intricacies of municipal annexation. Check out our special print edition here.

Dear Readers – INDY’s identity as a newspaper has many layers. To some, it’s their go-to source of local music, arts, and culture coverage. To others, it’s where they find coverage of town council, their neighbors, and local issues. And many know it as the place to send a letter to the editor to make their voice heard, or where they got their first byline as a young journalist. For 40 years, INDY has also had another element: influential political endorsements.

Last week, over plates of rubbery conference chicken served in a hotel ballroom, a tablemate asked me to explain “just what kind of journalism” we do at The Assembly Network. The subtext: Is it the good kind or the bad kind? I’ve found this is a pretty widely held belief—that journalism is either one thing or the other, for or against. It’s on us to overcome that expectation by building a different kind of news outlet.