A hairy mini-monster from Virginia is drawing worldwide attention.It is invading, taking over our state and making us vomit.Except that it isn’t.The 1½-inch-long venomous creature, called a puss caterpillar, can indeed hurt you, as it did a New Kent County woman on Sept. 4. But the little creeper’s threat...
The Virginia Mercury staff won 11 first-place awards in the 2019 Virginia Press Association contest, the first year the publication, launched in 2018, was eligible to compete.Reporters — including current staff writers Ned Oliver, Sarah Vogelsong and Graham Moomaw and former reporters Mechelle Hankerson and Katie O'Connor — won...
In the long and dubious history of nasty presidential politics, the anti-Trump attack ad that the pro-Democrat super PAC Priorities USA paid NBC affiliate WJFW-TV in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to televise in America’s 134th largest market seemed tame enough.The 30-second spot uses rapid-fire audio snippets of Trump dismissing the seriousness...
Every detail of the interview for my first full-time newspaper job editing a small Mississippi Delta weekly remains vivid and indelible in my memory.The paper’s owner asked me what the first duty of a newspaper was, and I was ready with a load of fresh journalism school rhetoric...
Not many people would bet next month’s rent money on the accuracy of the next political horse race poll proffered by the media. Can you blame them?The perception is that recent polls have failed us spectacularly. Just ask Joe Biden, whom polls showed firmly in control of the Democratic...
If you've ever worked in journalism or had the misfortune of listening to a reporter complain about it, you've probably heard a version of this adage: The hours are long and the pay sucks, but, on the other hand, everyone hates you.That's why it's probably too much to expect...
Here’s a piece of advice for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, one of President Donald Trump’s chief sycophants and enablers: Get an extra layer or two of skin. You’re definitely on the thin side.And bone up on the ground rules that journalists use. You’re way too ignorant of them.Pompeo...
Mercury reporter Mechelle Hankerson won a first place award from the Virginia Coalition for Open Government this week for her coverage of the Library of Virginia's struggles to catalog and make public records of former governors.The library is still in the process of archiving the records of Gov. Tim...
Two former staffers at The Virginian-Pilot have teamed up to launch a nonprofit investigative newsroom that plans to partner with media outlets and universities around the state to produce in-depth local reporting.The Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism aims to post its first story within the next month and hopes...
A year ago today, stressed, sleep-deprived, picking over the wording of my introductory column and anxious about our roster of stories, I waited for the Mercury's website go live.I had left a 13-year career in newspapers for the new world of online-only, nonprofit news, and, as I contemplated the...
