From the reporter's desk: Why l love this work

Local News Day is Thursday, April 9; today, our Report for America Community Vitality reporter Dina Weinstein provides her perspective on the work she does for the Citizen. Help support her work by making a contribution here.

National and international stories have resonated locally to the very core of Henrico County residents’ lives. . . and Henrico Citizen news articles have been capturing those issues.

Health, housing and transportation intimately impact people’s lives every day.
Being able to attend the meetings at which these issues are listed on the agenda and discussed often are where these key issues form.

Sometimes, the important issues that impact people’s lives are the points that are discussed after the meeting has ended or are brought up during public comments. Other times the issues that people are facing become clear in emotional social media posts or comments. People experiencing issues often communicate the urgency directly.

Listening, observing, reading, researching and asking questions is how I’ve developed many of the most-read stories in the Henrico Citizen.

I saw national news outlets reporting on how deportation flights from around the country, including Richmond, were descending into a Louisiana airport that had become a deportation hub. This is part of the spike in detention and removals of immigrants and migrants country-wide, along with the related human rights concerns. That led me to look into the details of how deportation flights were operating around the country.

On a rainy autumn day, a flight tracking website showed a flight from the Alexandria, Louisiana airport on its way to Richmond International Airport. I arrived in time to witness and photograph shackled men being led from unmarked vans to waiting airplanes parked in front of the Richmond Jet Center.

My on-the-ground reporting brought the scene to readers.

This groundbreaking reporting on the deportation operations at Richmond International Airport alongside the wider quantified findings and concerns of the Human Rights First deportation report, linking the operations to the global reach, gave readers new insight into concerning connections to human rights abuses right under our noses.

This was apparently also news to the elected and appointed leaders who steer the local airport. Many of those on the Capital Region Airport Commission seemed to be grappling with the ethics of the deportation flights occurring near their purview which they learned about only through the articles.

Federal representatives learned of the flights through the Citizen's reporting as well. Activists expressed concerns to those leaders. Legal and immigrant rights groups that had felt minimized by their clients and community’s deportations appreciated the reporting so that the greater community would know what they had experienced. Many expressed how their rights were violated in the process.

This kind of journalism aids understand how this national issue reverberates down to our local level.

Connections built at food banks results in reporting on how SNAP cuts and the government shutdowns have amplified hunger, how people are coping and others are trying to help those impacted. Recent reporting showed how the fight to fund the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is impacting local Transportation Safety Administration screeners at Richmond International Airport.

A local reporter does what artificial intelligence cannot – bring crucial facts and perspectives, fact check, amplify local voices, and explain the issue’s impact.

Readers also appreciated articles about schedule changes to Amtrak trains departing from the Staples Mill station during the new Potomac River bridge construction gleaned from attending Virginia Passenger Rail Authority meetings… and then hearing from actual commuters rushing to their pre-dawn trains headed to jobs in D.C. on how those scheduling changes impact their lives.

During the icy winter we just experienced, Henrico residents wanted to know when and if their dangerously slick roads would be cleared or salted. Reporting and interviewing residents and Henrico Public Works staff informed readers of conditions throughout the county as officials asked for patience from residents trapped in neighborhoods by unplowed roads covered in thick ice.

Local news and community journalism is more than press releases.

While covering my crucial coverage beats, I’ve aimed to report on insights into Henrico’s population. That took the form of an article portraying the dance community and what it takes to run the professional Conflux Dance Theater out of the West End Dance Academy.

Articles that captured Henrico County’s international population in timely ways involved leaving the newsroom and sometimes eating downright delicious food like portraying how the growing Indian population celebrates Diwali, how Henrico’s Muslim population observes Ramadan, what Henrico’s Venezuelan restaurateurs thought about recent events in their homeland, and where to dance Salsa in Henrico like Bad Bunny.

Many people in these articles had never been interviewed or been covered in the media before.

I love going out and speaking with people around Henrico County and writing about issues that impact us, how we’re living today, where we’re headed and how Henrico compares on all fronts while holding our leaders accountable.

That’s the importance of local news.

– Dina Weinstein, community vitality reporter