© 2026 Blue Ridge Public Radio
Blue Ridge Mountains banner background
Your source for information and inspiration in Western North Carolina.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
BPR is hiring! Click here for more information.

Journey Across the 100: What Issues Keep North Carolinians Up At Night

The Jackson County courthouse in Sylva, NC in the southwestern area of North Carolina.
The Jackson County courthouse in Sylva, NC in the southwestern area of North Carolina.
The Jackson County courthouse in Sylva, NC in the southwestern area of North Carolina.
Credit Scott Sharpe / News & Observer
The Jackson County courthouse in Sylva, NC in the southwestern area of North Carolina.

In an ambitious new project, visual journalists from The Charlotte Observer, The News and Observer and the McClatchy Company spread out across the state of North Carolina to record the concerns of regular people.Host Anita Rao talks to Scott Sharpe and Julia Wall about 'Journey Across the 100.'

The project, called “Journey Across the 100,” resulted in a short video from each of North Carolina’s 100 counties. Together they give voice to the ordinary people often left out of political conversations in Raleigh. Host Anita Rao talks to Scott Sharpe and Julia Wall about the surprising and overlooked themes that emerged from the project as well as how they intend to use their reporting to inform 2020 election coverage. Sharpe is the visuals editor for The News and Observer and the McClatchy Southeast Region, and Wall is a staff photojournalist for The News and Observer.

 

Copyright 2020 North Carolina Public Radio

Anita Rao is the host and creator of "Embodied," a live, weekly radio show and seasonal podcast about sex, relationships & health. She's also the managing editor of WUNC's on-demand content. She has traveled the country recording interviews for the Peabody Award-winning StoryCorps production department, founded and launched a podcast about millennial feminism in the South, and served as the managing editor and regular host of "The State of Things," North Carolina Public Radio's flagship daily, live talk show. Anita was born in a small coal-mining town in Northeast England but spent most of her life growing up in Iowa and has a fond affection for the Midwest.
Katy Barron