Member Focus: Reynolds Hutchins, Editor of Charlottesville’s Daily Progress
On any given day, you can likely find Reynolds Hutchins at Common House Charlottesville, working diligently on our city's news for The Daily Progress. Recently, we sat down with him to learn more about his background.
Tell us about your background
Originally, I was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and at the age of 12 moved out to Los Angeles. I came back to North Carolina for school and started working in journalism as a cub crime reporter in Burke County, North Carolina, outside of Asheville. At the time it was the methamphetamine capital of North Carolina. But as someone who wanted to cut their teeth in journalism, there's no better place to start. I had a lot of older journalists, a lot of mentors, who told me that, if you start in a place like that, covering stories like that, nothing's ever going to scare you—ever again—no matter what you're covering, and they were right.
I worked my way up through Virginia to DC only to start working my way back down into Virginia because I missed it so much.
What did you miss about Virginia?
There's a lot of reasons. I know a lot of people say this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm prone to agree, but there's only so much majestic mountains and historic downtowns can do. It's mostly the people. I fell in love with the people here, and I missed them. All that other stuff is stuff you share with people.
Describe your role as Editor of The Daily Progress
I rejoined The Daily Progress in January as City Editor; I had been a reporter here a decade ago. Then in June, I was named Editor of The Daily Progress, as well as some of the weekly publications that have folded into us, including The Greene County Record, The Orange County Review and The Rural Virginian which cover Charlottesville and the surrounding area.
As the Editor, I'm responsible for newsroom operations. We are a daily operation, so I begin every day by working through what stories we're covering for that day — both assigning stories and hearing pitches from my reporters.
What’s one piece of advice you tell your staff?
Get involved in the community - storytelling requires participation. Plus, readers are discerning. If you are not interested in the work, it shows.
What work are you particularly proud of?
Early in the year I was very proud of an entire edition we did focusing on the recent rise in crime. A lot of that was taking a big step back and saying, what are the different stories we can pull out of this? What is the police department doing? What do the actual numbers look like, not just year over year, but compared to a couple years back? When were they at their lowest, what were the highest? It was going beyond just what an investigating officer says at the scene of a shooting. It’s important and we should report that (and we do), but I didn’t want to stop there. It’s our job to tell the reader what we can. So, I'm very proud of doing an entire edition. I think the entire front page and much of the inside of the paper was devoted to really trying to figure out, you know, what's going on? What are our officials and leaders telling us and what do they think, and what can we do and what are we doing now?
Anyone who comes into Common House Charlottesville, knows that you are here a lot. What do you like about being in this space?
What I like about the space is the same thing I like about Charlottesville. It’s not enough to have a great physical space — it's the people. Common House wouldn't be the same if Brandi or Corrine or Julia or Aaron or Logan weren’t here saying “hello” at the door and helping me throughout the day, because Lord knows I need their help, being there and being real. They engage personally with you.
This connection is an old fashioned idea that I think we moved away from for a while, but I think it’s something people crave. We all don't want to just be served. We want to engage and want to know the people that we’re with. People crave intimacy and this place provides it.
You’re getting married in September! What is the most obscure item on your registry?
We added classic things — china, crystal, that sort of stuff. But I was also adamant that we should put fun things on the registry that (I figured) people wouldn’t get us. Turns out, no one has gotten us china so far, and the first person bought us an expensive picnic basket, complete with dinnerware, wine glasses, flip compartments, and stuff like that. I thought it was the silliest thing that we could possibly put on the registry and was the first thing someone got.
Where do you think you’re going to take it?
I mean in a place like this, opportunity abounds! It's great for going out to wineries. There's plenty of places that are just like natural beauty spots around town. We went to King Family for polo, and I thought wow, an immediate use for it. You know what I don’t have an immediate use for? Silver candlesticks. They’ll look great, but I’ll have to start throwing a lot more formal dinner parties.