Another year of our history
Hi reader,
On an average day this year, the Henrico Citizen published more than six articles about some aspect of life here in Henrico County. To date, that’s a total of 2,208 articles in 2023, to be exact, including more than 600 bylined articles by a member of our staff or a contributing reporter. (Didn’t read every single one of them?? It’s ok, I’ll let it slide just this once…)
In the past six years, that total is more than 12,100 articles.
That’s a lot of Henrico history.
While most people think of news coverage as something that exists primarily to serve current, day-to-day informational needs, it’s vital for its historical value, too.
We are documenting – quite literally – our county’s history in real time so that you or anyone else can go back next month or next year or 15 years from now and know what happened and why. That matters. No history books do this – only local journalism like ours, which is nonpartisan in nature and provides the necessary context, perspective and details.
A friend of mine who owns a small publication in another state recently published an article about the first female football player in her small county’s history. The only problem, as she learned from several readers afterwards? There had been another one, more than three decades earlier.
During the extensive research she and her reporter conducted before publishing the story, they had uncovered no record of the first girl’s time on the field. No coverage existed to preserve that small, but important, part of the community’s story.
“This shows how much we need our history written down and saved,” my friend wrote. “So much is lost, so easily.”
Indeed it is. And it’s why we continue to do the work we do each day here in Henrico.
If our history matters to you the way it does to us, we’d be honored to have your contribution of any amount today. And you’ll know that you are helping to inform current, and future, generations of Henricoans as a result.
With gratitude,
Tom Lappas, publisher
(If you’d prefer to mail a check, please send it to:
T3 Media, LLC, 6924 Lakeside Avenue, Suite 307, Henrico VA 23228)