When I started Wake Forest Matters, I didn’t have a plan. I had a frustration: too much of what happens in this town — board meetings, school board decisions, the quiet bureaucratic moves that shape where we live — wasn’t getting covered. Or it was getting covered late, or sideways, or buried under syndicated wire copy that knew nothing about Wake Forest.
So I started writing what I wished someone else would write.
That was a passion project. It still is. But it has grown into something more than that — a community news and information hub that covers town government, schools, restaurants, parks, things to do, neighbors, obituaries, and the occasional small kindness or wild absurdity that makes Wake Forest, Wake Forest.
It’s clearer than ever that this needs to be sustainable. Hosting bills, public-records request fees, email tools, and reporting time all add up. So I’m making four changes you should know about.
If you’ve been reading and you want to chip in, there’s now a Support page. Three options:
Tip once — $5, $25, or $100, no account needed.
Become a paid member — $6 per month. You get behind-the-story notes, source documents, member-only comment threads, and quarterly reader meetups.
Become a Founding Member — $100 per year. For readers who want to go above and beyond to keep this work going. Same access to the journalism — bigger thanks from me.
To be clear: news coverage stays free for everyone. Always. The town doesn’t work if civic information is only available to subscribers. What members fund is the time and tools it takes to do the work — not access to the work itself.
2. Local businesses can sponsor the work
For local businesses, there’s now a Sponsors page with two newsletter pricing tiers — $75/month for a single newsletter sponsor slot, $150/month for newsletter plus sitewide placement — and a $25/month featured listing in any of our area guides.
Editorial coverage is independent of sponsorship. Sponsors don’t get favorable coverage and they don’t get protected from criticism if criticism is what the story calls for. But if your business reaches Wake Forest readers, this is a clean, clearly labeled way to do it. The full editorial policy is on the Sponsors page.
3. The Substack newsletter is reopening
A few of you have told me you find the Substack format easier to read, save, and forward than the website. Fair point. So I’m reopening the Wake Forest Matters Substack for ongoing publishing.
From here forward, stories will appear in both places — website and Substack — so you can read in whichever format you prefer. If you’ve already subscribed to the newsletter, you’ll keep getting it. If you haven’t, subscribe free here.
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4. Featured listings in the guides
The restaurant guide, things-to-do guide, and neighboring-town guides have become some of the most-read content on the site. A sponsor-supported “Featured Listing” can now appear at the top of any guide for $25 per month — fully labeled, no editorial influence, just a way for local businesses to get visibility in the places people are searching.
This started as a passion project. Me, a notebook, a frustration, and a town I love. It is still a passion project. But for it to keep going, it has to start paying for itself. Reader support, business sponsorship, and the discipline to keep showing up — that’s how it happens.
Tom Baker IV is the founder and publisher of Wake Forest Matters, the area's only independent local newsroom. A Wake Forest native and twelfth-generation North Carolinian whose family has called this part of the state home since the early 1700s, he brings deep local roots to his reporting. Before turning to journalism, Tom spent a decade in the U.S. Navy in signals intelligence — a background in analysis and accountability that shapes how he covers Wake Forest today. He later served four years as North Carolina State Lead for Princeton University's Bridging Divides Initiative, building and running a statewide network that helped protect election workers, journalists, and local officials across multiple election cycles. As an investigative journalist, he now reports on town government, development and growth, schools, and public spending, holding local institutions to account. Wake Forest Matters is independent, nonpartisan, free to read, and reader-supported, with published ethics, standards, and corrections. Tips and story ideas: publisher@wakeforestmatters.com
