Our mission
I started Williamsburg Watch a year ago because the community needed a locally owned news organization to help Williamsburg area residents understand what’s impacting their lives.
I have been stunned at local government meetings to hear residents say they had no idea about controversial projects ranging from the James City County government center to Williamsburg-James City school redistricting, even though local officials had been talking about them for years.
We hold government officials — elected and appointed — accountable. Our readers are involved citizens who vote in local elections, pay taxes and volunteer at their church, PTA and other local organizations. They care passionately about this great community we are fortunate to call home.
Our readers understand that not everyone will agree on the best solution, but all of us are neighbors who should treat each other with respect.
Why should you trust me?
My name is Digby Solomon, and I retired as president of The Daily Press, The Virginia Gazette and the Tidewater Review in 2016 after a 40-year news career that included being a foreign correspondent in Latin America and stints in television, radio, internet platforms and newspapers across the country.
I started as a cub reporter covering James City County in 1972 for the former Times-Herald, the Daily Press’ afternoon paper. Wife Kimberly, whom I met at the Daily Press, and I moved back in 2007 so I could run The Daily Press group, with the goal of retiring here. My youngest daughter, now a journalist herself, graduated from the Williamsburg-James City County public schools.
Kimberly, a small business owner, spent years volunteering in the public schools our daughter attended.
The newspaper economic model was imploding when I left in 2016, and I have sadly watched newspapers across the country dwindle to irrelevance or go out of business altogether. More than 50 million Americans live in what the Medill School of Journalism calls “news deserts.”
The decline of local news is, as my former editor and Knight Foundation colleague Marisa J. Porto so cogently argues, a problem that stresses the very fabric of our democracy and how we treat each other as citizens and neighbors. Here’s a link to her thoughts on the matter.
But technological developments such as this Substack platform are making it possible for local journalists to provide residents with the news that matters to them.
By subscribing to the Watch, you will get access to daily news updates on everything that’s relevant to you.
But there’s more!
If you agree with me about the value of local journalism to democracy, consider becoming a premium member.
Premium members get a monthly behind the scenes report from me, where I’ll dissect challenges I found in getting the news and the decisions I made to keep coverage balanced.
They also get first pick of quarterly town halls with local decision makers, and have expanded access to help me develop this project.
What’s it cost?
A regular subscription is $8 a month.
You can prepay a year for $80.
Premium memberships are $100 a year.
Businesses and other organizations can purchase a bulk subscription for at least 5 employees for $5 each a month.
To subscribe just press the Subscribe Now button and you will be redirected to Substack’s subscription engine.
Get involved
We are looking for a few local residents who have well-informed and passionate opinions about our community to serve as guest columnists. We are specifically looking for a contributor who wishes to write from the liberal point of view, and one from the conservative point of view. But we want opinions on current local issues, not generic national conversations.
Our goal here is to ensure balanced and factual editorial opinions from all sides, not a free for all. This will require a serious commitment to produce one good piece of 500 words or less every month. It will be edited for clarity and content. And you must agree to follow our ethics policy.
All our readers will be invited to comment on every story and column we post.
We also want your suggestions about stories, events and topics you want us to cover in our community.
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
