AFP, yet again, was shut out in the annual Pulitzer award season, which isn’t necessarily for the lack of impactful journalism from us.
Yeah, I’m having to say so myself.
Crystal Graham actually achieved something with her reporting on the Staunton Police Department’s use of Flock cameras.
It started on Sept. 8, 2025, with a story titled, “Are police, ICE using Flock license plate cameras to spy on you?” – bringing up issues with privacy related to the use of the invasive traffic cameras.
That got the local discussion rolling toward her Dec. 19 report, “Staunton to cancel Flock Safety camera contract, citing issues with ideology of CEO.”
We’re still holding feet to the fire – her most recent report, dated March 6, was titled “Virginia police not following new law for use of Flock, ALPR cameras.”
This is what good journalism does – it draws public attention to a matter of importance, spurs a debate, and ends in an action being taken.
One other sterling piece of journalism from Crystal: her three-part series on the tumultuous 2024 at Staunton-Augusta-Waynesboro Habitat for Humanity, which ran on the site in early January, 2025.
ICYMI
- Habitat for Humanity ‘survives’ tumultuous year with exit of executive director
- Habitat’s work continues, its plans for the future
- What we can all learn from Habitat, United Way
That thoroughly reported series of stories highlighted the effort of the nonprofit to work to get back to its mission after a tumultuous year with an executive director suddenly stepping down and a decimated board left to pick up the pieces.
This work was storytelling at its best.
My best work of 2025 was probably the story involving UVA Swimming associate head coach Gary Taylor, who was placed on probation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport in March after admitting to emotional misconduct while coaching swimmers from 2015 to 2022 at NC State, Auburn and Cavalier Aquatics, the latter being the competitive youth swim team at the Piedmont Family YMCA.
ICYMI
- Cav Aquatics, UVA Swimming coach Gary Taylor on probation after admitting to emotional abuse of athletes
- UVA extended contract of coach two weeks after he was put on probation
- I gave UVA Athletics a chance to make amends on the coach misconduct story: They don’t wanna
Taylor is still listed on the UVA Swimming team’s website as the associate head coach.
We never did get anybody at UVA Athletics to comment on any of what was going on there, or even acknowledge anything.
A close second in the “not getting anything done” category for me was the effort to get to the bottom of why the Staunton PD and the Staunton Commonwealth’s Attorney office failed to take action against a MAGA counter-protestor who drove recklessly through an anti-Trump rally in Downtown Staunton in April.
ICYMI
- Staunton: Magistrate issues warrant in ‘rolling coal’ incident at April 5 protest
- Staunton: Somehow, I’m now the prosecutor in the April 5 reckless driving case
- Staunton judge dismisses reckless-driving charge against local towing company owner
The PD ceded the investigation to me; oddly, I had to present the results of my findings to a local magistrate to get charges against the counter-protestor.
More oddly: the Commonwealth’s Attorney office declined to prosecute the case, leaving it to me to argue the matter before a local judge.
I doubt this was a first nationally, but I will assume that it’s pretty rare, for authorities to leave the matter of investigating and prosecuting a crime to a reporter.
I’m still 0-for-my career in court, after coming up short in 2023 and 2024 in my months-long effort to compel the Augusta County Board of Supervisors to release a recording of a closed session held in violation of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act in which supervisors discussed the resignation of a board member who had been accused of sexual harassment.
One other in the “not getting anything done” area: we did at least get the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office to release bodycam and dashcam video associated with the officer-involved shooting in December that led to the death of Dustin Griffin, 42.
ICYMI
- Augusta County: What happened on Dec. 17 on Parkersburg Turnpike?
- Augusta County sheriff releases bodycam video in Dec. 17 shooting: Case closed?
- Virginia State Police not done investigating Dustin Griffin shooting
We put the full-court press on Donald Smith, the county sheriff, and Tim Martin, the Commonwealth’s attorney, to get the videos released.
I personally still think there are questions that need to be answered there.
Anyway, the Pulitzer people didn’t call us this week, but we’re still plugging away.
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