Luanne Rife

Mar 21, 2025 | cardinalnews.org | Luanne Rife

Happy Sunshine Week. This is the time set aside each year to raise awareness around the need for open government and our right to know what the government is doing. Ironically, we were set this week to go to court to defend this fundamental right, but a hearing over a request our executive editor made under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act has been delayed until April. FOIA — or “foy-a” as it is often called — is at the heart of what we do every day.

Feb 12, 2025 | cardinalnews.org | Luanne Rife

Luanne Rife is the executive director and co-founder of Cardinal News. You can send questions to [email protected]. What happens when you ask Virginia’s top lawmakers from opposing political parties to lunch? When we did this last year, the answer looked collegial.

Jan 29, 2025 | cardinalnews.org | Luanne Rife

Luanne Rife is the executive director and co-founder of Cardinal News. This is the first in what will be a regular series of columns about Cardinal and local news in Virginia. You can send questions to [email protected]. Some of the conversations I’ve had lately about news avoidance remind me of another difficult time.

Dec 26, 2023 | cardinalnews.org | Luanne Rife

Cardinal’s editor Dwayne Yancey sent a message the other evening, “I’ve sent you a draft of our annual year-end report that we’ve traditionally (we’re now old enough to use that word!) used right after Christmas.”Aah, three years a tradition makes. Dwayne, as is his tradition, has weaved in a wide variety of telling numbers regarding our readership and staff growth, and then some.

Nov 6, 2023 | cardinalnews.org | Luanne Rife

This essay is part of an op-ed project, Cardinal Way: Civility Rules. Its companion piece can be found here. The project is to encourage constructive dialogue on difficult issues. You can participate in the project:I agree with my colleague that our country is fractured. The national partisan divide has grown so deep and so wide that it has swallowed reasoned thoughtful debate, and has lured ideological lemmings to follow their like-minded friends into the abyss.