Booming suburbs, shrinking newsrooms

You’re reading Charlotte in Motion, a biweekly newsletter that examines how the Charlotte region is dealing with bumper-to-bumper traffic, rising housing costs, crowded schools and other challenges that come with the ultimate Charlotte story of growth. Charlotte in Motion is produced in partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and WFAE.

by Tony Mecia

Cabarrus County, just northeast of Mecklenburg, is one of the fastest-growing areas in the Charlotte region.

It’s home to Concord, the region’s second-largest city, with 112,000 residents. Industries are expanding. Subdivisions are popping up. It’s home to a major research center, revitalized downtowns and NASCAR teams.

But when it comes to keeping Cabarrus County in the loop about what its elected officials are up to, there is only one reporter. His name is Chris Miller.

Miller, 35, was laid off in early 2025 from Concord’s newspaper, the Independent Tribune. So he did what he saw a lot of laid-off journalists doing these days: start an email newsletter. His year-old venture, The Cabarrus Compass, is going fine, all things considered.

While Charlotte media sometimes swoops in if there’s a big controversy, Miller feels the day-to-day weight of covering an entire county by himself. He’s typically the only reporter at meetings of Cabarrus County commissioners, the school board and city councils in Concord and Kannapolis.

“It’s tough when you’re trying to cover everything,” Miller says. “… It’s a big responsibility. There’s a lot happening. These commissions and [the] school board — the decisions they make can affect thousands upon thousands of people.”

It’s a perplexing dynamic playing out in the counties surrounding Charlotte: They’re growing, adding thousands of new residents a year. But despite all the growth, residents are generally less informed about their communities – especially about the decisions of local political leaders – than they were just a few years ago, civic leaders say.

That trend is largely connected to the collapse of newspapers, which were once powerful civic beacons in their communities but are now shells of their former selves, with just a few national exceptions. For the most part, nothing has replaced them.

While cities such as Charlotte have felt that shift, the problem is much more acute in suburban and rural areas. A census of media organizations undertaken in 2023 by UNC Chapel Hill’s journalism school counted 29 media organizations in Mecklenburg County. Cabarrus had just two – the Independent Tribune and TV station WAXN (TV-64), which is licensed to Kannapolis and mostly shows national reruns like “Seinfeld” and “Dateline” and also nightly Charlotte-area news from WSOC-TV. 

Among other local counties, Lincoln had one media organization, Union and Iredell each had three, and Gaston had four.

And the ones that exist have been contracting. After laying off Miller and a sportswriter in the past year, the Independent Tribune has just one newsroom employee, its editor, who writes a popular weekly column and occasional news pieces, many of which stem from press releases. Online home page headlines this week included: “Kannapolis now takes reservations for park shelters,” “Rowan-Cabarrus names its newest student ambassadors” and “2026 Run Kannapolis 5K Series begins Sunday,” among a lot of statewide and national wire articles.

The Independent Tribune is owned by Iowa-based Lee Enterprises, one of the country’s largest newspaper chains, which also owns papers in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Hickory, Morganton, Mooresville and Statesville.

Miller, on the other hand, tends to focus exclusively on Cabarrus people and issues. In the first three days of this week, he published eight articles, from examining a dust-up between Concord and Kannapolis over transit cuts to profiles of four people in their 20s starting a local theater company to a look at the legacy of the retiring aviation director at Concord’s airport.

He says there’s no animosity between him and his old boss at the newspaper – that they’re both doing the best they can with limited resources.

In an era of soundbites and social media scrolling, Miller says his strategy is to provide context to help his readers fully understand their community.

“Like a great wine, I always strive for my stories, especially the detailed features, to have space to breathe, so people feel like they really get to know the person or organization that I am writing about,” Miller writes on his Cabarrus Compass website.

Local leaders say Miller is helping fill a big void by providing credible information about Cabarrus County issues and people. And they’re rooting for him to keep going.

“The general citizenry doesn’t know what’s going on,” says Barbi Jones, CEO of Cabarrus’ chamber of commerce, which is called The Chamber–Leading Business in Cabarrus. “To me, at the end of the day, you need to understand why things are happening.”

One afternoon last week, Miller was in a small podcast studio at Flywheel, a coworking space in a former Cabarrus Savings Bank building in downtown Concord.

He was interviewing Jones – who is stepping down from leading the chamber after a decade – for an episode of his new podcast, called the Cabarrus Conversation.

He starts by asking her about her background and the work she’s most proud of during her tenure – which she says was working with the N.C. Department of Transportation to minimize the effects of I-85’s widening on local businesses.

“That’s what’s so special about Cabarrus County, is everyone cares and everyone wants to see everyone succeed,” she tells him.

Miller then sees if Jones will make any news by asking her if she plans to run for political office after leaving the chamber. She acknowledges she might consider it – and if she runs for anything, it would be for the Cabarrus school board in 2028.

“I probably don’t have the stomach to go beyond school board – not currently the way things are – because it’s pretty cutthroat, and we have seen great candidates in Cabarrus County not get elected and even more not run because of things that are said and done,” she told him.

It’s the kind of insights that are hard to find in Cabarrus County – focused on local decision-makers and local issues.

In an interview with The Charlotte Ledger afterward, Jones says the lack of local information distorts debates over public policy. For instance, some residents see only snippets of information on social media — like the cost of extending water and sewer lines that are needed to keep Cabarrus growing and its tax base strong — without developing a fuller understanding of the issue.

“If the only thing you're reading is that we're going to spend so many millions of dollars on expansion, you freak out,” she says. “You say, ‘My taxes are going to skyrocket.’ Well, you don't realize all these other things that we can't do.”

In other Charlotte-area counties, leaders are lamenting the lack of reliable local information, too.

In Gaston County, the issue isn’t so much that residents receive half-truths or misinformation as much as it is that they receive no information at all, says Donny Hicks, the county’s longtime economic development director.

For instance, many residents don’t know that companies in Gaston County are at the forefront of developing plant-based food coloring and Covid testing materials. Nobody talks about that on social media or anywhere else, depriving residents of information about their neighbors and the local economy, Hicks says.

The Charlotte Observer closed its Gaston County newsroom years ago, while the Gaston Gazette has shrunk to only two news reporters and a sports reporter, according to its website. The Gazette used to have a daily business section devoted to local issues, Hicks says.

“There’s never a chance to go back with any kind of even feel-good story about ‘Hey, do you know this is being done here?’” Hicks says.

With 242,000 residents, Gaston is the fifth-largest county in the Charlotte region, behind Mecklenburg, York, Union and Cabarrus.

Hicks says the lack of local information doesn’t necessarily affect policy debates. But it does leave some residents only partially informed, with leaders sometimes unable to get their messages out.

“Some people wonder why there are so many buildings being built, or they’ll say, ‘We don’t need any more big warehouses,’” says Hicks, referring to Gaston’s strength as a warehousing and distribution hub. “Well, [people don’t understand that] that big warehouse – this is how much it pays in property taxes, and here’s how much you would have to pay to make up for that revenue.”

The UNC media census lists four media sources in Gaston: the Gazette, the Cherryville Eagle, Fox 46 (licensed to Belmont) and Belmont Abbey’s radio station. Charlotte TV stations will often show up for groundbreakings and other announcements, but generally nobody covers issues with depth or perspective, Hicks says.

“Unless you have someone who brings a broader approach to it, whether it’s positive or negative, people just generally don’t know,” he says. “There’s a lot more attention paid to social media now, where you’re not getting the full story like you did in the past.”

There have been some digital upstarts in the region, like the newsletter Hello, Gaston!, which started in 2024. Its founder, Ben Dungan, said he hopes to fill some of the information void by focusing on events and positive news like food, culture and outdoors – “nothing really heavy.”

In Gaston County, “there’s not really any local media,” he says. “TV news stations in Charlotte do a better job of covering Gaston County than media companies in Gaston County.”

Since 2005, around 3,000 newspapers have disappeared nationally, and they’re closing at a rate of about two a day. Studies have shown that without local media coverage, fewer candidates run for political office, and there’s lower civic engagement and increased political polarization. A 2024 study found a link between the closure of newspapers and increased public corruption cases.

In Cabarrus County, Miller says he considers showing up to public meetings to let elected officials know he’s watching to be part of the job.

“I’m just there, the old government watchdog,” he says. “Even if nothing happens at a meeting, they see that I’m there, and I feel that’s important.”

Miller is an N.C. State grad who earned a master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland. He describes himself as a movie buff who’s fond of Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, as well as a “Star Wars” fan and avid runner who sings in a church choir. He’s applied to be a contestant on the reality show “Survivor” three times.

Although the Cabarrus Compass has grown in its first year in business, it’s not yet where it needs to be to become financially sustainable. He has about 1,600 people on his email list, including about 640 who pay at least $5 a month or $50 a year to read his work, almost all of which requires a paid subscription to read.

That works out to more than $35,000 a year in annual revenue. He’s working to build out advertising or sponsorships but admits he doesn’t have a background in sales.

His readers say they’re hoping Miller continues, as he provides a valuable service.

“It’s just critical to be able to know what’s going on in your local community,” says Mark Shropshire, co-founder of Concord-based digital creative studio FocalGroove. “There is a lot of stuff happening in Cabarrus County. I wouldn’t know it without him.”

Miller says that sort of feedback encourages him to persevere.

“People have thanked me and praised the work,” he says. “That always makes you feel good. It’s like anything you do: Anytime people give you kudos, it gives you a shot in the arm to keep going.”

Tony Mecia is executive editor of The Charlotte Ledger. Reach him at [email protected].

Showcase your brand alongside Charlotte leaders. Sponsor the Charlotte Ledger’s 40 Over 40 Awards and connect with more than 250 business and community attendees. Contact [email protected]