We remember Frank Daniels Jr., the difficulties of being a single mom and a mass shooting
Part one of a five-part project revisiting the 2022 stories that had an impact on The N&O’s staff.
Honoring a life in a few sentences
The first newspaper stories I learned to write were obituaries, and there’s a reason you learn them first. There’s no greater honor than summing up someone’s life in a few sentences, and that solemn job fell to me in June when Frank Daniels Jr. died.
The most rewarding part of this job is digging into the archives, and The News & Observer’s are understandably overflowing with words about our former publisher. I went happily into this museum on microfilm, where among the black-and-white pictures of men in chunky glasses and wide ties, I had my best experience as a reporter this year.
That’s what we’re collecting here: not a best-of collection, but more of The News & Observer staff’s personal experiences with the Triangle’s happenings in 2022 — a year that saw a mass shooting in Raleigh, a nail-biter of an election, a hurricane that mostly fizzled and a pair of Tobacco Road rivals in the Final Four.
In my case, I found a simple letter to the editor, written by Mel Lewis in 1995: “I am a rabid conservative zealot who begins each morning reading the rabid liberal zealotry of The N&O. It will not be the same without a Daniels to cuss over my coffee.”
Lewis’ words provided not only a zinger of a quote, but they represented what we do best and try to do well every day — hit people squarely where they live and make them emotional enough to write something down.
But this treasure got even richer when I heard from Lewis again after the story about Daniels was published. His wife had called him all the way in Virginia, where he was coming home from a fishing trip with a car full of bass, to let him know he appeared in his old nemesis’ news tribute.
Once again, he took the time to write something down.: “I do like the word ‘zealotry’ so I don’t doubt I said exactly what you said I said,” he wrote in an email. “My daughter and three grandchildren are QUITE impressed.”
So today we News & Observer writers, editors and photojournalists reflect on moments like these from 2022. Below are the stories we told over the past year that have stuck with us. They reflect intense personal grief, joy, struggles and systemic issues.
We hope these stories had as much of an impact on you as they did on us.
Josh Shaffer is a reporter and columnist.
Shining a light on the difficulties of being a single mom
I was raised by a single mom after my parents separated. She worked two jobs. We’d clean homes and offices together to make ends meet. She later became physically incapacitated as a result. She struggled but managed to stay strong for my brother and me.
Growing up, I told myself I’d make enough money to ensure she never had to worry about making ends meet like that again. I’m proud to have been a part of an important project about single mothers that shone a light on these difficulties that are sometimes too painful to discuss. Internalized shame can be hard to bear. But this project reminded me of the compassion and deep gratitude I have for my mother. She is superhuman.
Paola Pérez is a Raleigh-based senior audience growth producer for North Carolina.
Cassidy Hutchinson’s bravery
I understood the magnitude of what I watched unfold on June 28.
Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to North Carolina’s Mark Meadows — chief of staff to former President Donald Trump — testified about the men’s actions before and during the Capitol riot.
Her words changed the course of multiple investigations.
But her words weren’t my takeaway. My heart sank when I saw her.
It doesn’t end well to go up against powerful men when you’re young, female and trying to convince an audience you’re the one telling the truth. I have nearly a decade on Hutchinson and do it for a living.
I knew what she was up against.
She was brave.
Five minutes passed in the pressroom following the hearing before anonymous sources called nearby male reporters and said she was lying. They’ve yet to publicly put their names behind their accusations.
Danielle Battaglia is a Capitol Hill correspondent for The News & Observer, The Charlotte Observer and McClatchy covering North Carolina politics.
A horrible nightmare comes to life at a parade
It was supposed to be happy.
My wife and I decided to watch a little bit of the Raleigh Christmas Parade before I had to head to work. We got there late but found a nice vantage point eight floors up at the top of a parking garage. We saw exotic cars and marching bands, all in perfect lines.
And then we heard the horn. At first, we thought a truck was late and trying to get to its proper place in the parade. And then we heard the screams and people running.
It was a horrible nightmare that came to life.
As a journalist, we tell the stories of our community. The good, the bad and the unimaginable.
I hope to never witness the unimaginable again.
Ethan Hyman is a staff photojournalist.
Teachers feeling pressure between politics, Black history
The goal of the story was to talk with North Carolina teachers about how they’re discussing Black History Month amid the current political climate.
What impacted me is how a number of typically outspoken teachers didn’t want to be quoted or even for it to be known they had been contacted for the story. They feared that critics who are accusing teachers of indoctrinating students would come after them if they spoke out publicly.
This reluctance to discuss the issue made the comments stand out even more from teachers who were willing to talk about the pressure they feel to censor their words.
The line between critical discussion on issues and proselytization may get blurry. But overcompensation by skirting away from contentious topics has its own issues.
Keung Hui is a K-12 education reporter.
An unimaginable mass shooting in a Raleigh neighborhood
No N&O article made me feel more deeply than Andrew Carter’s humane reporting after the mass shooting in Raleigh’s Hedingham neighborhood.
Andrew had stood on Tracey Howard’s front porch, listening to the unimaginable. When Howard returned from a run-of-the-mill errand, he found his bleeding wife there, their dog shot dead at her feet.
Resident Lavarius Thompson and a friend did not sleep the night after the killings. They consoled each other for hours. Joe Biunno stayed awake too, on his back porch alone in case anyone approached his home with a gun.
Andrew closed the story with a shocking reality. Within days, the mass shooting was no longer the country’s most recent.
“Six people had been shot in Alabama. Four in New Bern, about a two-hour drive east,” he wrote.
Cathy Clabby is McClatchy’s Southeast investigations editor.
A bike rider’s death changes my daily behavior
Countless stories resonated with me this year. But only one changed my daily behavior.
Nicholas Watson was killed riding his bike on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill last winter. A driver opened his parked car door, striking Watson who fell to the ground.
Reporter Tammy Grubb covered the initial tragic story and how the town of Chapel Hill has navigated to make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. One idea was to lower speed limits and make “dooring” illegal.
Another was to teach people about the “Dutch reach.” That’s when you use your right hand to open the driver’s-side door, forcing yourself to look back behind you for approaching vehicles.
Writing and reporting on pedestrian deaths has made me a both a more defensive driver and pedestrian. But I’ll admit I opened the door without much thought or just a quick glance in the side mirror.
Now I always open the door with my right hand.
Anna Johnson is a Raleigh and Wake County government reporter.
Cruising Across Carolina series provides a much-needed escape
Ever since the pandemic shut the world down and added restrictions to how we travel, my sense of wanderlust seems to have magnified. I want to go to all the places.
I felt this especially when local Raleigh couple Penn and Kim Holderness competed, on, and won, CBS’ “The Amazing Race,” which saw the “Christmas Jammies” family racing to glorious places around the world.
Since a trip to such far-flung locales wasn’t going to happen for me this year, my colleagues Martha Quillin and Travis Long showed me through their Cruising Across Carolina series how I could find adventure a few hours away in North Carolina. With Travis’ beautiful photos, presenting familiar sites in new ways, and Martha’s personal and well-written travelogues, I rediscovered the beauty of my home state — and added new spots to my wish list of travel destinations.
Jessica Banov is a breaking news editor and features editor.
A van that helps those dealing with pediatric cancer
I stood in the July heat trying to photograph a crowd gathered around a van in front of University of North Carolina Cancer Medical Center, a place I’ve frequented for maternity care and two births.
Instead of remembering my birth stories, which were full of life and joy, I fought an urge to cry as I listened to stories about children who had fought for their lives as they battled cancer. A sheet was removed from the van to reveal images of those children’s faces peering out at me.
The van is being used by Children’s Cancer Partners of the Carolinas to help patients and families dealing with cancer get home necessities and family care.
The faces on the van would only be relevant to passersby if they know the families, but the story I wrote hopefully serves as a reminder to people of the highs and lows that life can present.
Chiungwei Huang covered science for The N&O as a 2022 AAAS Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellow.
Racist recording shows limits of police accountability
Covering how North Carolina’s regulators of law enforcement standards responded to a recording of the Columbus County sheriff calling African-American deputies “snakes” and “Black bastards” was, for me, a memorable lesson in the limits of our accountability systems.
The ex-deputy who made the recording of Jody Greene’s comments said he reported it to several state and county officials two years ago but was largely brushed off.
Greene avoided a public hearing on the wide-ranging corruption allegations more recently leveled against him by resigning. And he campaigned for reelection as though he were still sheriff, seemingly without consequence. The county’s voters chose to give him another chance.
I can’t help but wonder what might change if state law didn’t shield most records about alleged law enforcement misconduct from public view.
Carli Brosseau is a reporter on the investigative team.
Read the rest of the series:
