Sean Tubbs has been a journalist in Virginia for over 30 years.
Sean Tubbs is an award-winning journalist with nearly 30 years of covering local and regional government. Since July 2020, he has published the newsletter and podcast Charlottesville Community Engagement to help community members understand the mechanics and purposes of planning. This website is the archive.
From 2007 to 2018, Tubbs was a senior reporter for Charlottesville Tomorrow, an organization created to help increase public knowledge of the nuts and bolts of how decisions are made and how plans are implemented. Tubbs is a 1995 graduate of Virginia Tech and a resident of the Charlottesville area since 2002.
Tubbs also writes a weekly column for C-Ville Weekly on real estate and land use issues.
Current Work:
Charlottesville Community Engagement: A regular newsletter and podcast about things that happen in the area in and around Charlottesville. Published since July 2020.
The Week Ahead newsletter: Published every Sunday, the Week Ahead is a weekly preview of what is coming up in local and regional government in and around Charlottesville, sponsored by the Piedmont Environmental Council.
Charlottesville Podcasting Network: A website created in 2005 to serve as an experimental portal for podcasts. Currently on pause, CPN will return to providing original programming in the summer of 2022.
Cvillepedia: Tubbs helped create an online repository of information about Charlottesville during his time as senior reporter at Charlottesville Tomorrow. He served as cvillepedia coordinator for the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society from April 2022 to June 2023.
Previous Work:
Charlottesville Quarantine Report: A podcast produced from March 2020 to the summer of 2021 dedicated to providing information about the public health response to the novel coronavirus known as COVID-19.
Charlottesville Tomorrow: Tubbs worked for over 11 years at Charlottesville Tomorrow as program officer and then Senior Reporter. He published nearly 1,300 articles and won several awards with the Virginia Press Association.
Awards:
- Associated Press, Douglas Southall Freeman Award: First, William Fralin, Rick Mattioni and Sean Tubbs, WVTF-FM, Roanoke, VA, “Civil Discussion Series,” 2021
- Virginia Press Association, Best in Show, Writing (online division), 2016
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Features Series (online division), 2016
- Virginia Press Association, Best in Show, Writing (online division), 2015
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for In-depth or Investigative Reporting, 2015
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Business and Financial Writing, 2015
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Government Writing (online), 2015
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Health, Science, Environmental Writing, 2015
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Government Writing (online), 2014
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for Business & Financial Writing (online), 2014
- Virginia Press Association, First Place Award for In-depth or Investigative reporting, 2013
- C-Ville 20, C-Ville Weekly 2006
- Virginia Piedmont Technology Council Community Award, Nominee, 2006
- Edward R. Murrow Award (Regional) for Best Documentary for “Virginia’s Experiment with Eugenics” (Four part series)
Comments from Tubbs:
My mission is to provide a constant flow of information about this area to provide context about decisions made by our elected and appointed officials. Documenting what happens is important not only so that community members can make informed decisions, but also so that the future can look back upon what happened.
This effort to bolster community media seeks to fulfil the higher ideals embedded in our country’s founding documents. The people who wrote them were deeply flawed individuals, but the aspirational legacy of those words have resulted in a society where we each have the expectation of the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though this country continues to fail to meet those goals for many of its citizens. It is not self-evident that all of us are created equal, because many of us are treated very differently.
I am a first generation American who became a journalist to understand how things worked. I do not have a large family here, and I do not have a legacy that predates my birth. My parents were able to build a lot of wealth due to my father’s entrepreneurial skills. From an early age, I asked questions and learned to write in order to deliver the answers to the public. I have spent most of my career seeking to explain what I saw and heard in front of me.
In May 2018, I temporarily left journalism to take an opportunity for a career change. In that time, I have learned that arguing in favor of positions is something that does not come naturally. As a journalist, I listened to what people said and wrote it down accordingly. For many years, I wrote stories that contributed to the public record.
Getting back to the work
When the pandemic was declared, I felt a calling to help communicate to people about COVID-19 and the various changes underway.
On March 15, 2020 I created a podcast called the Charlottesville Quarantine Report about what was going on with the disease. In the first month, I produced the show almost every day, and ended up transforming my bedroom into a recording studio and office space. My daily routine got back to that of a working journalist, seeking information from available resources.
In mid-July, I launched Charlottesville Community Engagement. I quit my full-time job and decided to see where the work took me.
This is all built on a dream I have had for many years, a dream that has been reality at several points in my career. I began as a professional in 1995 as a public radio intern, and I’ve had a good career. I am the founder of the Charlottesville Podcasting Network, a creator of cvillepedia, and I spent eleven years at Charlottesville Tomorrow covering local meetings. Over the years, I have a reputation for being truthful, accurate, and community-building in my work.
Writing is how I explore the world and how I order my mind. In doing so, I’m hoping to help others understand the world of process. The world is increasingly a complex place, and I believe everybody needs a better understanding of how they can navigate the world.
I am running run my life as a business, as most of my waking hours are spent pursuing this information. I record about two dozen events each week and distill what happened into information. I’m here to answer questions about how things work.
I am back on a beat that I know very well and expanding my reach. I am excited to work alongside other