The Assembly, a three-year-old digital magazine on power and place in North Carolina, is announcing the launch of its Greensboro bureau and the team that will help make it a new journalistic force in the region.
We’ll be reporting big stories and publishing a free weekly newsletter, The Thread, that pulls it all together. Launching in June, The Thread will bring compelling, original reporting on topics that matter in Greensboro and beyond, right to your inbox. You can sign up now.
We’re also pleased to announce the journalists who will make the Greensboro effort possible.
Emily McCord joins us on May 13 as our senior regional editor, working not just with Greensboro, but also our other teams in other parts of the state. Emily was most recently the news director at WFDD public radio in Winston-Salem for nearly a decade. Her team’s work was recognized for “Overall Excellence” for four consecutive years by the regional Edward R. Murrow award, and they also received a national Murrow award. She grew up in Chapel Hill and is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Joe Killian also starts May 13 as our Greensboro editor. Joe joins us from NC Newsline, where he was senior investigative reporter. Before that, he spent a decade reporting for Greensboro’s daily newspaper, The News & Record, where he covered cops and courts, higher education, and government. A North Carolina native, he’s been living and writing in Greensboro for more than 20 years.
Reporter P.R. Lockhart will start on June 10 as our Report for America Corps member in Greensboro. P.R. joins us from Mountain State Spotlight, where she reported on economic development in West Virginia. She’s also worked as a staff reporter for Vox and an editorial fellow for Mother Jones. P.R. studied psychology and journalism at Duke University, where she worked for its student-run daily newspaper, The Chronicle.
Sayaka Matsuoka will also be working with us as a contributing writer. She is the managing editor at Triad City Beat, where she covers news and culture. She has written for a number of other publications in North Carolina and beyond, and is the diversity chair for the board of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. She’ll be working with us on several big features and investigations this year.
Contact the Greensboro editorial team with tips and feedback at greensboro@theassemblync.com.
The Thread is made possible thanks to $100,000 in launch funding from the Greensboro Community Journalism Fund at the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro. The Fund, chaired by longtime Greensboro journalist Ann Morris, raised money from about 30 local donors.
The Thread will draw support from both readers and local advertising. For more information on donating or advertising, please contact Doug Copeland, our business lead for Greensboro. In the coming weeks, we’ll also be announcing a local advisory board to help provide support and feedback from the community.
About The Assembly
Launched in February 2021, The Assembly now has 16 full-time employees working across the state.
The Thread joins our growing network of regional bureaus that are strengthening local reporting across the state. That includes The Dive in Wilmington, produced in collaboration with WHQR, and our partnerships with CityView in Fayetteville and INDY in Durham.
We’re a subscriber-supported, for-profit outlet focused on great magazine-style journalism at the state-level. We partner with other outlets in the state and nationally, and our stories are regularly cited in outlets such as Politico, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Axios.