WRAL-TV Voted Best Station In Fayetteville

The readers of Fayetteville's Up and Coming magazine have voted WRAL-TV as the Best Area TV Station. The Best of Fayetteville voters recognized WRAL for "a renewed commitment to Cumberland County and Fayetteville." WRAL brought home this honor last year as well.

	Hailed as the Cape Fear Region's Leading Arts and Entertainment Magazine, Up and Coming designed The Best of Fayetteville to be the
voice of the people of Cumberland County and provide a forum for its citizens to acknowledge those who provide the best service, give the best quality and entertain. The listing in the magazine for the Best Area TV Station stated that, " While WKFT might be the local station, Fayetteville

residents owe their hearts to WRAL." Up and Coming also stated, "As the station's news team has become more aggressive in reporting not on the bad, but good news about our city, the station's management has taken on an intense interest in our community. Their strong support was evident in their donation of money to repair the facilities at WJSS and to keep the channel on the air."

Downtown Fayetteville

WRAL has maintained an increasing presence in Fayetteville over the past two decades. As of late, WRAL has launched an initiative to actively insure coverage for its Fayetteville audience. As WRAL Promotions Director Cindy Sink explains, "the strategy is to provide Coverage Fayetteville Can Count On. Frankly, we have that local commitment to coverage of all our towns; Fayetteville is unique in that we have a cable link, which allows us to market to them specifically with Fayetteville-only promotion and public service. Fayetteville is NC's fourth largest city, the second largest city in our coverage area, so it is a sizeable group of people that we are serving."

Shani Blount	Melissa Buscher	Michael Joyner	David McCorkle
WRAL-TV's Fayetteville Newroom Staff

Located on the 11th floor of the Sytel building in downtown Fayetteville, WRAL's Fayetteville newsroom has a staff of two full-time reporters and two full-time photographers, as well as a live truck kept on hand to cover breaking news. WRAL Fayetteville reporter Melissa Buscher works as part of the effort to make sure Fayetteville receives news coverage. She said, "People who live in Fayetteville often feel left out because they watch news out of Raleigh. We have really made a huge effort to try and change that. We are now covering events on weekends and covering a lot of good news in this community. WRAL is also sponsoring a lot more events here. I think it's really made a difference." Reporter Shani Blount and photographers David McCorkle and Michael Joyner join Buscher on the WRAL staff in Fayetteville.

Up and Coming is a free tabloid and provides a overview of what's happening in the Fayetteville area. Published bi-weekly on Wednesdays, regular features include a Dining Guide, Seniors, Military, Flick Picks, Best of Fayetteville and Calendar of Events. Magazine readers vote for the Best of Fayetteville. Only one entry per person was eligible, and all entries were sent to McFadyen & Sumner CPAs to be tallied.