The Charlotte Observer, where I spent 23 years, is shedding its top two newsroom leaders. Good people falling victim to a hedge fund. I don’t recognize that place anymore.
www.qcitymetro.com/news-buzz/ra...
On building up a city, a family legacy and a storied golf tournament. We are here today, and drinking in all CLT has to offer! @michaelngraff.bsky.social #thecharlotteoptimist #thequeencity #PGA #QuailHollow
charlotteoptimist.com/pga-champion...
It’s true what they say about Johnny Harris, at least the part about how you can hear him coming long before he arrives. He’s still a freight train, although maybe a little more polished and patient now in his late 70s than he was in his 30s. On Good Friday morning last month, five days after he was in Augusta to witness an electric Masters finish, and three weeks before the PGA Championship at his home Quail Hollow Club, his voice rumbled down the hallway like a Harley. And when he walked into the library to greet me, I thought the lights might flicker. He asked me where I wanted him and his son, Johno, to sit. I asked where might be most comfortable for him. “I don’t care,” he chuckled in a classic drawl that smashes I don’t into Ion. “I’ll sit wherever you tell me to.” I suggested the couch. “Well, two of us on the couch doesn’t look very good,” he said. He pointed to the card table on the other side of the room, and so that’s where “wherever you tell me to” would be.
lol'd at this @michaelngraff.bsky.social lede about one of Charlotte's most powerful men charlotteoptimist.com/pga-champion...
Always read @michaelngraff.bsky.social (which will be much easier to do if you sign up for The Charlotte Optimist). Fantastic debut piece: charlotteoptimist.com/charlotte-wo...
Thank you for taking the time to read it!
Just read inaugural essay by @michaelngraff.bsky.social - charlotteoptimist.com/charlotte-wo...
It’s a wonderful piece of writing. Subscribe and you, too, can read the Charlotte Optimist, a weekly Sunday column - helping to keep ties alive to my beloved former city 💕👑🌷
It’s about time some of the real journalists in #CLT took their city back. Hell yes, @michaelngraff.bsky.social this is something I am genuinely excited to see!
My bud @michaelngraff.bsky.social launched The Charlotte Optimist today ... it's for Charlotte, but the way Mike writes, it'll be for everyone. Sign up now.
charlotteoptimist.com/why-im-launc...
Thank you for this, Ally. Means a great deal to me to see good Charlotte folks like you respond like this. Have high hopes.
Excited about this one. But I’d also be excited to subscribe to a @michaelngraff.bsky.social project about most anything.
A Graff substack comparing the consistency of oatmeal brands? Sign me up. A new Graff project about the hidden joy of formica? I’ll be an inaugural subscriber.
Our Friday newsletter: How do you define journalism?
Plus: Mary Schmich revisits Studs Terkel's "Division Street," Livingston Award finalists, @michaelngraff.bsky.social's stories about Charlotte, and @nazriahi.bsky.social's ode to rejection.
niemanstoryboard.org/2025/04/25/w...
#storytelling
Hats off to Easter, the only holiday that doesn’t end with fireworks in our neighborhood.
We live across the street from an Airbnb that’s kinda tucked behind a house, and let me tell you, people are not at their best when they arrive at a destination they can’t find.
This week's edition of my newsletter features stellar journalism and storytelling by @allisonbsalerno.bsky.social, @cmgreer.bsky.social, @saragentzler.bsky.social, @mckenziefunk.com, @michaelngraff.bsky.social, @jeffreybillman.bsky.social, @natedimeo.bsky.social and others, plus my own latest story.
Jack Cobb, a lifelong Republican with decades of blue-chip legal experience, gave up a lucrative role in private practice role in 2024 to take a federal consumer-protection job. Then Elon Musk took a chainsaw to his agency. @michaelngraff.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social
Thank you, Jodie! And many thanks to Tommy for sharing.
The second, by my pal @michaelngraff.bsky.social, on a lifelong Republican who lost his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
www.theassemblync.com/politics/cha...
Two DOGE stories for you this morning ... the first one, via my SouthBound podcast, on a UNC Charlotte professor whose team lost a grant on counseling for sexual violence in the LGBTQ community:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
EB White’s lovely “wind the clock” letter to a reader, written 52 years ago this week. lettersofnote.com/2012/01/06/w...
@lettersofnote.com
RIP John Feinstein. It’s hard to imagine what a breakthrough A SEASON ON THE BRINK was when it came out in 1986. It gave me and countless others a new idea of what sportswriting could be.
www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...
Mr. @michaelngraff.bsky.social, one of the best writers, editors, and people I know, has a new project in the works, and you should sign up for it here: charlotteoptimist.com
Missed this amid the fire hose of news: The Trump admin is now putting Education Department employees on administrative leave for simply attending a diversity training offered by the agency. www.politico.com/news/2025/02...
The Governor of NC has called for a GOP Supreme Court candidate to concede after I revealed for @propublica.org that Jefferson Griffin was trying to overturn his election loss by seeking to toss 5.5k military ballots--which is exactly the same way that Griffin has voted in the past. #ncpol
