An eyewitness to a stabbing
Plus: Sorting out Centene's big departure; Rebound for Mecklenburg tourism; Monroe Road area pumped about Charlotte FC headquarters; Car enthusiasts mourn end of gas-powered 'muscle cars'
Good morning! Today is Friday, August 19, 2022. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C. This post is sent to paying subscribers only.
Column: I was there last week when Salman Rushdie was attacked. After the media frenzy cooled, I’m left with an appreciation of free speech.
Charlotte journalist Mary Newsom took this photo and posted it to Twitter in the minutes after last week’s knife attack on author Salman Rushdie in New York. Then the news organizations started reaching out. (Photo by Mary Newsom)
By Mary Newsom
It seemed to happen so slowly. Later, it seemed to have happened so fast.
I was in the audience last Friday morning when a man in dark clothes ran across the stage at the historic Chautauqua Institution in western New York State and seriously wounded celebrated author Sir Salman Rushdie before a scheduled talk.
The photo I posted on Twitter went viral, or at least viral compared to my usual posts. What happened after, and lessons I’ve learned from it, may help others who find themselves inside a big news event. Further, the whole event offers good reasons to think deeply about issues of free speech — what it really means and what it doesn’t.
Quick background: Rushdie, 75, is a towering literary figure. His 1988 “The Satanic Verses” won major literary prizes, but some fundamentalist Muslims perceived it as blasphemy. People died in riots protesting its content. In 1989, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, calling for Rushdie’s death. Bookshops were bombed, and a Japanese translator of his work was fatally stabbed. And after several assassination attempts, the British government offered Rushdie protection. The fatwa has not been officially lifted, but for years Rushdie has appeared in public, living in the U.S. since 2000.
I was some 10 rows back from the stage when the attack began. Shocked, I stood frozen as people on stage and in the front rows rushed to aid Rushdie and another speaker, Henry Reese of Pittsburgh, also wounded. A scrum of scuffling feet, legs and arms made it hard to see. Was Rushdie just being punched or stabbed? Was the attacker caught? I don’t remember hearing screams or saying anything, though reports said people in the audience repeated, “Oh my God,” and I probably did, too. At first, unwilling to believe it was real, I thought it might be a stunt to highlight how Rushdie still lives under threat.
Then I saw flashes of red. Blood.
After a few short minutes, I realized these things: I had a cellphone camera, I’m a journalist, and the rest of the world didn’t know this was happening. I snapped a few photos and posted one on Twitter. I misspelled “Salman” as “Salmon,” although I choose to blame that on autocorrect. My photo showed a lot of legs and the face of someone lying on his back on the stage. It had to be Rushdie, although even now I’m not 100% certain.
Chautauqua staff hustled people from the 4,400-seat open-air amphitheater. I dawdled, but it was clear we needed to go. (Another vacationing journalist there, Associated Press reporter Joshua Goodman, stayed and began reporting.)
Once outside, I called a connection at The Washington Post and began working as a freelance reporter, sending on-the-scene information and quotes from witnesses. Meanwhile, my email, text messages, Twitter — direct messages as well as main feed — exploded with people asking permission to use my photo, or asking for interviews.
Juggling it all quickly overwhelmed me. I can only imagine what that’s like for someone with little news media experience. Because I’m a journalist, I’m no fan of companies using people’s work for free. That’s exploitation. So I knew some payment might be possible.
I also know not to expect to be paid to give interviews. That’s pay-to-play and widely considered unethical journalism.
Further, I have a decent sense of legitimate news outlets versus propaganda operations or media vulture sites. If I didn’t recognize an outlet, I’d do a cursory check or ignore them. Even so, I had to make fast random decisions, some of them probably wrong.
I tried to prioritize my work for the Post. I also agreed to be interviewed by a New York Times reporter. Those are respected newspapers operating with ethics and professionalism — plus I confess I’m biased toward print.
I said no to appearing on CNN that evening because I had expensive symphony tickets, though later the concert was canceled. I gave ABC News permission to use my Tweeted photo with credit, and the same for something called TMX, a “media platform based out of NYC that highlights important content to news outlets across the country and globally.”
ABC News and TMX did not offer pay, and I didn’t ask. In my frenzy, I thought I had too much to deal with, plus I don’t depend on freelancing for my livelihood. Would they have paid? Who knows? Later, ThomsonReuters and Sky News, both based in the U.K., offered to pay a modest amount.
I gave audio interviews to Newshour on the BBC World Service and to CBC radio, Canada’s NPR equivalent. I did a short video interview with ITV News, “the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster.” I saw it later and the video had a gray tone, as did my face, accurately reflecting my psychic state.
After the attack, as people I interviewed said they worried about making their names public, it dawned on me that whatever forces targeted Rushdie might now target me. My rational mind has pooh-poohed that thought. But still. That I worried about it seems evidence the attack was, while obviously assault, also terrorism. Terrorism aims to make people afraid. So you might conclude the alleged attacker, Hadi Matar, and the fatwa itself have to some degree succeeded in muzzling free expression. As they intended.
It didn’t help soothe anxiety when several people told me to be thankful it was a knife and not an AR-15. Nor did it help my comfort with public safety when my car was broken into this week and my purse stolen. As Rushdie once said, “There is no such thing as perfect security, only varying levels of insecurity.”
On Thursday, Rushdie remained hospitalized in Pennsylvania with severe wounds. With a week’s hindsight, I’m reflecting on “free speech,” which Rushdie for decades has strongly championed.
“Two things form the bedrock of any open society — freedom of expression and rule of law,” he told The Times of India in 2008. “If you don’t have those things, you don't have a free country.”
As a journalist, I cherish the First Amendment. But its freedoms aren’t absolute. And I’ve come to believe sometimes “free speech” is being used as an excuse for some people to just be jerks and suffer no repercussions.
The First Amendment doesn’t generally protect us from being sued for libel, or fired, boycotted or punched in the nose. “Nobody has the right to not be offended,” Rushdie has said. “That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.”
For now, thank goodness, we in the U.S. remain free to offend others, even when it may not be advisable, whether we’re Communists, Confederate sympathizers, antifascists, racists, religious fundamentalists or atheists. We’re also free to boycott, abhor and even sever friendships over those ideas. Rushdie, I think, would agree with all of that.
But what about social media, now an open sewer of hate speech, fraudulent misinformation, threats and incitement? Do we have to defend all that as free speech? I think not. Defamation can be punished. Urging violence or sending death threats is criminal. So, obviously, is attempted murder. Last week’s attack was assault, and it was criminal. That part’s easy to see.
But what about, say, “cancel culture,” a term now being used as in the culture wars for when someone is muzzled because their words or ideas are abhorrent to many people? Rushdie spoke about it in a 2021 interview with The Irish Times. He’s not a fan.
“There’s a youthful progressive movement, much of which is extremely valuable,” he said, “but there does seem to be within it an acceptance that certain ideas should be suppressed, and I just think that’s worrying.”
In today’s viciously polarized society, I wonder: Where on the continuum do hateful words turn into inciting violence? When does offensive speech turn criminal? I think sometimes we have to just admit those lines are fuzzy. We can boycott and protest, carry signs, write our own pieces. But in the end, I’m with Salman Rushdie. Freedom of expression is essential to a free society.
Mary Newsom is a long-time Charlotte writer and editor.
Analysis: What does Centene’s departure mean for the future of Charlotte office space? Is this 2022’s ‘The Vue’ moment?
Health insurance giant Centene, which has been building a campus on 130 acres in University City for the last two years with plans for at least 3,200 workers — now says, actually, that’s it’s not interested in having Charlotte as its East Coast headquarters. Those jobs won’t materialize, and it doesn’t need the campus. Wow.
That’s the upshot of a blockbuster report late Thursday afternoon by the Charlotte Business Journal (subscriber-only), which quoted a Centene executive saying that so many of the company’s employees are doing so well working from home that it doesn’t need as much real estate — including the nearly 1 million s.f. planned in Charlotte.
Gaining thousands of new jobs in the largest economic development project in state history was a big deal for Charlotte when it was announced in the summer of 2020, just months after the onset of the pandemic. Now, missing out on those jobs is also a big deal.
But the more significant question is what does it say about Charlotte’s office market? Is it doomed to stagnation? When the economic history of this time in Charlotte is written, will Centene be the office version of The Vue in the 2008-09 recession — a condo tower that fell into foreclosure and that became a symbol of the local housing market’s collapse? (It’s now a thriving apartment tower.)
It’s complicated. Companies are taking different approaches. On one side of the spectrum, you have banks, like Bank of America, which have said they want all workers back in the office. On the other side, you have tech companies, like Facebook, which have said employees can work remotely for the long term. Centene, which has a new CEO, essentially thought it was a bank before realizing it was a tech company.
Local office brokers, who tend to be optimistic, say they believe there is a “flight to quality” — that there will always be demand for new, up-to-date office space. And they point to new offices under construction, like Lincoln Harris’ 600 South Tryon uptown, a 24-story office tower that broke ground this year and is signing tenants like law firm Robinson Bradshaw. Lowe’s said this week that 1,000 employees have moved into its new tower in South End. Offices certainly are far from dead.
On the other hand, companies are signing leases for less space than before Covid, according to figures from Cushman & Wakefield. Companies signed leases on 1.7 million square feet of office space in the Charlotte region in the first two quarters of 2022 — less than the first halves of 2017, 2018 and 2019. That looks like less confidence in the need for office space than there used to be.
Wait and see approach: The truth is that many companies are biding their time until their leases are about to expire before deciding if they want to shed some real estate. There’s also the issue of looming economic uncertainty.
Because of its size and quick flip-flop on its need for a massive campus, Centene is likely to be Charlotte’s most dramatic example of a company reducing its need for offices. But it’s hard to imagine it will be the last one. It’s also tough to imagine that all the office towers announced in the last year or two will continue coming out of the ground at the pace Charlotte is accustomed to. —TM
Back to school — and back to the carpool line
Students at many Charlotte-area private schools returned to classes this week, including those at Providence Day School (above). Others that started were Charlotte Country Day, Charlotte Latin School and Mecklenburg Area Catholic Schools. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ first day of class is Aug. 29. CMS says it is the latest date it has started but that state law requires public schools to begin no sooner than the Monday closest to Aug. 26. (Photo by Mike McCarn/Providence Day School)
Tourism rebound: Mecklenburg #1 in the state, +46% in tourism spending last year
Tourism spending in Mecklenburg County rebounded sharply in 2021, with expenditures up by 46%, the N.C. Commerce Department said this week.
In Mecklenburg — which drew the most tourism money of any county in the state, an estimated $4.1B — the increase was slightly above the state average of 45%. Mecklenburg attracts about 1/7 of the tourism spending in North Carolina.
Some mountain and coastal counties also surged as the hospitality industry recovered from Covid: For instance, Buncombe County, home to Asheville, was up 81%, surging to No. 2 on the list with $2.6B in spending. —TM
Monroe Road corridor welcomes Charlotte FC headquarters
Residents in the Monroe Road area say they’re looking forward to their new neighbor: Charlotte FC, which announced plans Wednesday for a permanent headquarters with more than 110 employees at 8600 McAlpine Park Drive.
“[The] announcement was a surprise, but we heard a lot of excitement from area residents,” said Kathy Hill, board chair of Monroe Road Advocates. “We’re eager to hear more about the club’s plans and future programming. There’s a lot of potential here.”
Hill told The Ledger last week that the Monroe Road corridor is a growing hotspot for businesses looking for an affordable location. The corridor runs from East 7th Street to N.C. 51.
Charlotte FC currently uses the site to train on the fields. The new 52,000 s.f. headquarters will include four world-class fields, according to a club announcement.
Business boost? “Bringing over 100 new employees gives a boost to a lot of small businesses along the corridor, many of which are coming back from the effects of the pandemic,” Hill added. “This project is going to be a welcome addition to the entire eastside area.”
Renderings and the headquarters name will be revealed this fall, and the club plans to open the facility in spring 2023. Renovations to the existing structure at the site are underway. The site is owned by Levine Properties. —LB
Related Ledger article:
“A corridor that’s a magnet for displaced businesses” (🔒, Aug. 12)
Electric ‘muscle cars’? Local car clubs saddened by the end of gas-powered Dodge Chargers and Challengers
Some Charlotte-area car enthusiasts are none too happy about the announcement this week that gas-powered Dodge Charger and Challenger “muscle cars” will be discontinued at the end of next year.
However, the name will carry on in the car company’s first all-electric muscle car, the Charger Daytona SRT, which is expected in 2024. Some electric models will even have fake exhaust noise that simulates the revving of a gas-powered engine — and at the same decibel levels.
“I'm not a fan of taking something that we know and we love — our Charger — and then having it be electric,” said Lester Labroski, who with his wife, Darcie, moderates the Facebook group of Carolina Area Mopars, a Charlotte-based “motor parts” car club. “I, quite frankly, am not going to buy an electric vehicle unless I’m forced to.”
The Labroskis, who have lived in Charlotte for eight years, own a 2017 Dodge Charger Hellcat with a 700-horsepower engine.
Lester and Darcie Labroski of Charlotte own a 2017 Dodge Charger Hellcat (pictured here) and a 2021 Dodge Durango Hellcat.
Chargers and Challengers became popular in the 1960s and ’70s and were revived in the mid-2000s.
Yearning for ‘raw, vibrating power’: Carolina Challengers car club told The Ledger in an Instagram DM that members are optimistic that Dodge “will still be able to feed their beloved mopar community some tire-shredding, gear-jamming, annoying, loud, exhaust-having, muscle-car fun even in electric form” with the Daytona SRT. “... I am so thankful I grew up in an era of modern Muscle Cars. There is something about having the raw, vibrating power under your foot and in your hands that is exhilarating.”
“It saddens us all,” the DM continued, “but am thankful Dodge as a brand is not giving up, just like they didn’t do when emission systems were enforced in 1972.” —LB
In brief
N.C. abortions illegal after 20 weeks: A federal judge reinstated North Carolina’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, following June’s U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Previously, abortions in North Carolina were up legal until fetal viability, which is generally between 24-28 weeks. (Associated Press)
S.C. abortions legal before 20 weeks: The S.C. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the state’s “fetal heartbeat” law that outlaws abortions after about 6 weeks. The ruling makes abortions legal before 20 weeks, though lawmakers are considering new restrictions. (Associated Press)
New era for Queens sports: Queens University of Charlotte played in its first athletic event as a Division I school on Thursday. Its women’s soccer team lost to UNC Wilmington. (WSOC)
Lowe’s building open for business: Lowe’s Cos. says 1,000 employees started working this month at the new 23-story Lowe’s Global Technology Center building in South End. (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
Legacy Union building sells: Lincoln Harris and Goldman Sachs Asset Management closed on the sale of the new 18-story office tower at 650 S. Tryon St. in the Legacy Union development. It sold to Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties for $201.2M, or about $556 per square foot. The building will be known as “SIX50.” (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
I-485 shooting: A man driving on I-485 around 2 a.m. on Thursday near Steele Creek in southwest Charlotte was shot and killed. Police are investigating and provided no further details. (Fox 46)
New trial date for sexual assault case: The judge overseeing the Myers Park High sexual assault case The Ledger reported on Monday updated the date of the proposed trial after our article was published. The trial is scheduled for November 2022. (His original order — and our article — said November 2023.)
Basketball time: The Charlotte Hornets’ schedule was released this week.
Monkeypox vaccines at Charlotte Pride: The Mecklenburg County Health Department plans to distribute monkeypox vaccines at this weekend’s Charlotte Pride events, which are expected to draw thousands of people to celebrate the LGBT community. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said it is working with the federal government and the health department to increase awareness and vaccine availability. “While anyone can get monkeypox, right now, nearly all cases are among men who have sex with men,” NCDHHS said in a news release. Mecklenburg has had 91 monkeypox cases, about 1/2 of the state’s total. (N.C. Department of Health and Human Services)
Developer buys 80 acres near Matthews: A company connected to apartment developer Northwood Ravin bought nearly 80 acres at 8637 E. Independence Boulevard near Matthews for $17.5M, property records show. The company didn’t reply to inquiries asking about plans for the site. (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
CMS teacher turnover: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has lost more than 2,600 teachers since July 1, 2021, or more than twice the number of previous years. CMS still has 341 teaching positions vacant and says principals are going to have to “get creative” to cover classes. (WFAE)
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project