Commonwealth Chronicle

The lingering financial crisis hasn’t stopped one Lexington man from opening shop. Commonwealth Chronicle Reporter Cameron Steele sat down with the owner of Brix°, the newest local restaurant to bring you the latest on night life in Lexington, Va.

Click the video below to watch.

It has almost been five months since I graduated from Washington and Lee University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications. And as that anniversary is fast approaching, I ask myself the question I once thought of as redundant. Why did I major in journalism? It’s hardly the first time I’ve faced this question. More or less distant relatives would often make snarky comments under their breath about my chosen career path at various family gatherings. I always chose to welcome their snark with a confident smile and a speech about my love for writing and traveling, my tiresome curiosity and my desire to tell stories that would otherwise remain untold. But how much of that passionate speech is nothing but my romanticized perspective on a career that, to me, is becoming increasingly inaccessible every day?

Not everyone who majors in journalism wishes to become a journalist, and that’s O.K. But I did. And so did Cameron. Yet our future in journalism – as employed media professionals -  remains uncertain.

“Does anyone care enough to do any of these things?” Cameron asked me in an email she sent this week. The subject of that email was what I later decided to use as a title for this post. The “things” she referred to were public sources of support enumerated in an article in The Washington Post. According to this article and a report commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, a new model for news reporting could be established with support from various public sources, including philanthropists, local governments, local communities and Internal Revenue Service tax regulations. An excerpt from the Washington Post article:

American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reporting — as society has, at much greater expense, for public education, health care, scientific advancement and cultural preservation, through varying combinations of philanthropy, subsidy and government policy. It may not be essential to save or promote any particular news medium, including print newspapers. What is paramount is preserving independent, original, credible reporting, whether or not it is profitable, and regardless of the medium in which it appears.

So, will anyone care to do any of these things?

It turns out Virginia Voice is the registered name for Central Virginia’s audio reading and information service, a non-profit organization celebrating 30 years of service to the visually and physically disabled.

Cameron and I are grateful to Virginia Voice Program Director Becky Emmet, who informed us about this situation.

“We’ll certainly be starting a blog of our own very soon, and things could get more confusing,” Emmet said in an email. “Searching for Virginia Voice on Twitter was how I found you.” It looks like our little blog is growing up.

To all our readers, we hope you continue enjoying our stories.