Ledger odds and ends

Good morning! Today is Saturday, April 11, 2026. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.

You might have perceived that this week was a slow news week in Charlotte.

That’s the way it usually goes when Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is out for spring break. Traffic was lighter. There were frequent out-of-office email auto-replies.

At The Charlotte Ledger this week, we published a series called “AI at Work,” which took a closer look at workplace artificial intelligence trends and explored what’s happening, where it’s headed and, crucially, what you can do. We appreciate all the feedback, which will help inform future reporting on this vital and fast-changing topic.

We like to publish series on spring break week and several other times throughout the year, for two main reasons:

The week for us mostly went as planned — although managing editor Ashley Fahey and I did unexpectedly scramble on Tuesday, on the news of a major Japanese bank announcing up to 2,000 high-paying Charlotte jobs — with an email alert, a separate look behind the deal and what it means for real estate and a timely podcast breaking down the big news.

But we do have several projects coming up, so it was nice to mostly focus on those. We like to give our readers regular updates on what we’re up to at The Ledger — letting you peek a little behind the scenes — so in that spirit, let’s jump in!

—

In addition to providing you with smart, insightful information and analysis about Charlotte that you won’t find elsewhere, in the form of regular newsletters, look for the following from us in the next few months:

—

Last month, The Ledger invited readers to participate in a free-to-enter NCAA Tournament bracket pool, with winners receiving prizes.

In first place was Cooper Wasil, whose entry was appropriately named “Coop_Knows_Hoops1.” He wins a $75 Harris Teeter gift card. We asked him for his thoughts on his big victory, and he wrote:

That’s the confidence of a champion.

Philip Sanford took second place ($50 gift card) and Becky Budds took third ($25 gift card). Several others won attractive Charlotte Ledger pens.

Thanks for playing!

—

Late last year, The Ledger teamed up with The Election Hub and held a “Show Us Charlotte” photo contest. The photos will be featured on The Election Hub’s website, which provides neutral and trusted information on local political candidates.

The winners:

—

Another big project we’ve been working on for the past couple of months is probably less exciting to you — a big tech migration. You might have noticed we have switched email publishing platforms. We moved off Substack and onto one called Beehiiv.

We like many of Beehiiv’s features and the possibilities it offers for continued growth.

We have tried to minimize the changes for our readers, and we largely succeeded — we think — with a few small hiccups and errors along the way. If you have any troubles or questions, please let me know.

—

We’re approaching our 200th episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast, which is a weekly conversation with leaders about important and interesting local issues. It aims to make you smarter, tell you things you don’t know and introduce you to people with insights about trends in Charlotte.

We talk to some interesting people. Recent guests have included writer Michael Graff of The Charlotte Optimist, artistic director Alejandro Cerrudo of Charlotte Ballet, meteorologist Brad Panovich of WCNC and Laura Belcher of Habitat for Humanity of the Charlotte region.

We’re going to start sending email alerts to people who want to be notified when a new podcast drops (usually on Fridays).

➡️ If you’d like to receive alerts of new Charlotte Ledger Podcast episodes, click “yes” on the poll below, and we’ll make sure you’re notified.

— 

This year, we started internally tallying the number of times we are breaking original news — not the product of press releases — that is later followed by other media (typically without crediting us). It’s a way for us to gauge how much of an effect we’re having on people’s knowledge of local information, even if they don’t know we surfaced the information.

The number for the first quarter of 2026: 21 stories that we first disclosed through our gumption and shoe-leather reporting that were followed by other outlets.

The list includes Charlotte being the No. 2 job-creator in the country, the ouster of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ top lawyer, plans by asset manager Capital Group to expand here and a sharp increase in people converting to Catholicism. And many more!

More than half of the 21 were from our Real Estate Whispers newsletter. It routinely provides early word of local real estate and development moves that later come to light through formal announcements. You can opt into it and other Ledger newsletters online at TheCharlotteLedger.com by logging in and going to “manage profile” (upper right) and “subscription preferences.” This link should get you there.

The larger point is that The Ledger is committed to unearthing original information and sharing it with readers to keep you in-the-know. Besides breaking news, we also seek to add context, help you understand local trends and introduce you to people shaping Charlotte.

We’ll keep updating our internal ScoopTracker™ and sharing the results!

—

I want to recommend to you a couple of longer articles I read this week that I found fascinating, though they are not on local topics:

—

As always, thanks for reading. If you have suggestions, questions or stories we should be looking into, feel free to drop me a line.

Regular Ledger newsletters will resume Monday. Have a great rest of your weekend.

—Tony Mecia, executive editor
The Charlotte Ledger