Good morning, RVA! It's 59 °F, and today you should expect highs in the 80s and a ton of sunshine. Highs in the 80s!!
Water cooler
This is your second reminder that the Monument Avenue 10k will fill the Fan and parts of downtown with humans this Saturday! If you’re not racing, bikes or your own two feet are the best modes of transportation in and out of the city during all of the hullabaloo. The race will, of course, impact bus service until the afternoon, and the GRTC website has the list of affected routes (the 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 21, 70, 71). Registration for the 10k is still open, for those of you who both like to run and wait until the last minute to do so.
Michael Schwartz at Richmond BizSense has a few new details about the single proposal submitted to redevelop the entire neighborhood around the Coliseum. I enjoy how Schwartz describes Farrell’s group as “plotting” in their plans for a new arena before the City even put out an RFP.
Read this editorial from the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s editorial board about renaming local schools named after Confederates. It’s a rollercoaster of emotions. On the up side: The Board is disappointed with Hanover County’s decision to keep the Confederate names; they say that slavery was the cause of secession (are we still debating this?!); and they note that the Lost Cause was a years-later, racist, anti-civil-rights movement. On the down side: They say you could make an argument for naming schools after Lee or Jackson, that slavery was not a motivation for Virginia’s secession (I guess we are still debating this! You can read excerpts from a ton of pro-slavery speeches made during the Virginia Secession Convention to dispel that idea); and they take an entire paragraph to ding the mayor for saying kids of color shouldn’t have to go to schools named after Confederates because he failed to specifically mention that White kids should also not have to go to these schools. Yes, of course they should not, duh! But it sure makes me skeptical of your motives when you frame what the Mayor says about how systemic racism impacts people of color, when he’s speaking from his own experience about race, as a misstep.
The ICA must have hosted a media tour, because you can read a handful of new pieces about the exhibits you’ll find inside when the museum (institute?) opens on April 21st. Here’s a few of them: Harry Kollatz at Richmond Magazine, Colleen Curran at the RTD, and Chelsea Jackson and Siona Peterous at WRIC.
Annie Tobey has the details on the very straightforwardly named Richmond West Craft Alcohol Trail. If you happen to find yourself in the western part of the region, want to partake in some of the goods and services of the local alcohol producers, and have a designated driver, maybe check this out! If you’re in the City, however, you can hit almost all of the spots via public transportation, bikes, or just by walking around—no DD needed!
Sports!
- Squirrels return home to open the 2018 season against Reading tonight at 7:05 PM! Have funn, go nutz!
- Kickers head west to take on the Louisville City FC on Saturday at 7:30 PM. You can watch on CBS 6.3.
- Nats lost to Colorado, 1-5, that series continues tonight at 7:05 PM and over the weekend.
This morning's longread
The Facebook Armageddon
What does Facebook mean for mid-level, local journalism? Some not great stuff, probably.
As well-meaning as it may be, there’s no question Facebook’s dominance of social distribution, and the power it gives the company to command attention, represents a direct threat to media companies. It’s about control. As digital advertising continues to decline as a source of revenue thanks to Google and Facebook, many media companies are having to rely increasingly on subscriptions. But the readers they want to reach are all on Facebook consuming content for free. Places like The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal have the kinds of international brands that will allow them to continue to be advertising destinations and also get the lion’s share of subscriptions. But where does that leave mid-market papers that don’t have the scale or the reach?
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