“On the other hand, we were never intimidated about addressing the community on sensitive topics that we felt needed talking about or taking a stand on. “We were not afraid to be caught loving our community,” Neill says. There, he could be both blunt and brilliant. Readers got his take on both in his popular Sunday columns, published adjacent to the editorial page. He nurtured a newspaper with big expectations to match. When Neill was named publisher in 1975, Charlotte had big ambitions. Will the newspaper continue to do so in ways yet to be discovered? Neill is optimistic. Even so, Observer journalists continue to break big stories and call attention to important community issues. Today’s digital economy supports a news staff one-fourth that size. While newspapers did the same, legions of new online competitors cut sharply into their revenue.ĭuring Neill’s era, the Observer newsroom swelled to 260 journalists. Less than 10 years after he retired in 1997, audiences and advertisers began migrating to the web. This Observer is a shadow of its former self. New York-based hedge fund Chatham Asset Management now owns the Observer and McClatchy’s 29 other newspapers.Ĭhatham is also majority owner of Canada’s largest news chain, Postmedia Network Canada Corp., and owner of American Media, publisher of the National Enquirer. The Observer’s parent company, McClatchy, filed for bankruptcy in February 2020. He wishes he could be as confident about the future of the mighty newspaper he once led. It delights Neill to think that trees planted now will shade others long after he’s gone. And, of course, the colors in the fall are spectacular.” There’s so many trees! fly in and see them. “Charlotte’s brand is the tree,” Neill says in an interview near his home amid the towering willow oaks of the Queen City’s Eastover and Myers Park neighborhoods. It also has raised $8 million toward a $15 million endowment intended to keep Charlotte flush with trees for generations to come. With the help of volunteers, the group has planted or given away more than 35,000 trees since 2012. His pet cause is TreesCharlotte, a nonprofit group that aims to replenish the city’s enviable tree canopy.
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER FULL
He retains the sharp wit, trim physique and full head of silver hair that distinguished him in crowded community gatherings.īut these days Neill is more likely to be found digging in the dirt alongside some excited Scouts or elementary school students. Now 88, Neill still keeps up with all things Charlotte. And he would know a lot more about what other people thought about something than I did.”
“Rolfe knew more about everything than I did,” McColl says. Fans, in fact, were fond of saying it wasn’t news until it appeared in the Observer. Three out of every four adults read the Observer on any given day. Joining him in the remake was a string of CEOs and a procession of mayors.īut no one matched what Neill brought to that exclusive executive circle: an institution with unparalleled reach in the city. McColl, 85, is the best known among a handful of civic leaders who lifted Charlotte from its status as a generic Southern city to that of a thriving business center in the 1980s and 1990s. Rolfe Neill, publisher of The Charlotte Observer. The fellow who ran the newspaper down the street. It was the one person in town with the power to upend a bad idea. Someone unafraid to tell him, “That’s a dumb idea.” Someone wiser about the city than he, McColl says now. strolled Charlotte’s uptown streets 30 years ago, imagining a stately skyline rising amid acres of surface parking lots.īut few could guess who was at McColl’s elbow on many of those walks, quietly but firmly troubleshooting his assumptions. It wouldn’t surprise many to hear that banking titan Hugh McColl Jr. As newspapers’ influence crested, publisher Rolfe Neill played a pivotal role in Charlotte’s emergence.
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