We were lucky to catch up with Norine Dworkin recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Norine, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

VoxPopuli means “voice of the people” in Latin. And our tagline reads: “the alternative voice for community news.” What we mean by that is that we’re dedicated to centering and amplifying people who are not always heard from in mainstream and legacy media. And beyond that, we also cover topics that are not typically covered in community newspapers. VoxPopuli is a harder, edgier, more substantive read than most community publications around here. For instance, VoxPopuli recently covered two hate speech incidents in the city of Winter Garden, including a situation in which the mayor, when directly asked if he would condemn the neo-Nazis who spread antisemitic literature through the city, dodged the question and gave a kind of mealy response. The competing community paper didn’t cover that at all, but we think people should know that A) neo-Nazis spread white supremacist literature through our community and B) the leader of our community didn’t have a great response to that.

So, the inspiration for VoxPopuli was one of the greatest of alternative news weeklies, The Village Voice. I was lucky enough to be a freelance writer for the Voice during the 1990s while I was doing my graduate work at New York University. And I was a devoted reader long before I was a Village Voice writer. I admired the edgy writing, the deep-dive investigations, the fearless reporting that took on the powerful in service of the powerless. So when I started my publication, I wanted to have “voice” in the name because part of the mission is to be a voice for the voiceless. Originally, I thought about calling my publication the West Orange County Voice. But some research yielded up another publication in Apopka called the Apopka Voice and I didn’t want to risk a copyright infringement or for people to think the two outlets were related.

Then I remembered that “vox” was “voice” in Latin. Eventually, I settled on VoxPopuli — voice of the people. Our name is also meant to telegraph that we are wholly independent. We’re not backed by a hedge fund or ad agency or chamber of commerce. Our site is reader-focused and reader-supported with no commercial or political ties.

Norine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

At VoxPopuli, we cover a particular slice of media landscape in West Orange County, Florida. We report on local government, politics and social justice issues — hard news stories that residents of Winter Garden, Ocoee, Windermere and Oakland aren’t likely to read elsewhere. As the main regional daily, the Orlando Sentinel, lost advertising to social media sites, it pulled back on its suburban coverage. That allowed digital startups, like VoxPopuli, to fill in the coverage gaps. In so doing, we brought a depth and seriousness to local news reporting that had been lacking in the marketplace. At the same time, we tackled topics that hadn’t been covered before — government overreach, anti-LGBTQ/antisemitic discrimination, environmental racism. Readers thank us all the time for the work we do.

Recently, we covered the Ocoee municipal election, which was a wild ride. That election included a sitting commissioner breaking campaign finance laws; a former felon whose resume did not stand up to fact-checking; and a candidate who lived in Orlando but rented an apartment in District 3 to try to unseat an incumbent city commissioner after a failed campaign for Congress, and then refused to answer questions about it. We broke all of these stories at VoxPopuli. After the election, we ran in-depth coverage of the city’s decisions around a special election to fill its District 4 commission seat when the commissioner vacated it to run for mayor and lost. First the election was on, then it was up in the air, then it was finally rescheduled for Primary Day 2024. We carried (with video) reporting on why the commission reversed itself on the special election, complete with residents’ pro and con comments on the issue.

In Windermere, we’ve followed a story for a year now in which the town commission is suing its residents to take possession of five privately owned historic boathouses, in a classic case of government overreach. And in Winter Garden, we’ve reported on an LGBTQ demonstration at a city commission meeting that lambasted city officials for lack of leadership on LGBTQ issues. We also reported on the Winter Garden mayor’s sidestepping condemnation of neo-Nazis for spreading hate literature throughout the city. And recently, we reported about a hearing before Winter Garden’s city commission regarding an annexation and rezoning of property next to a horse farm during which the city’s attorney was both counsel to the city and an advocate to the developer who wanted to annex the property. The case is currently being appealed, for, among other things, lack of due process because of the city attorney’s actions.

The vast majority of these stories haven’t appeared in other publications. Without VoxPopuli’s reporting, residents would not have known that these events happened. For us, journalism is a public service, and our goal is to make government more transparent to its residents, and to hold public officials accountable.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Never underestimate the power of simply asking people to follow you. This is so easy, but it works. Ask people to like and share your content. Ask people to follow your site. People don’t always know how to help you, but if you tell them, they’ll do it.

We are still building our following on social and our email list. But every time I post anything, I include a last sentence: “For more VoxPopuli, follow us and sign up for our FREE newsletter at WinterGardenVox.com”

That yields us more follows on social and subscribers daily. It’s a slow build to be sure. But the people who follow or sign up, do so because they like what they’ve read. Now, we’re a nonprofit news site, so we have no pay wall. We believe the news should be accessible to everyone regardless of the ability to pay. But the hope is that subscribers who like our content will kick in $5 to $10 a month to support our journalistic efforts when we do our fundraising.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I deeply believe that everyone is entitled to accurate, reliable news about what their local elected officials are doing, and that’s news that often gets short shrift when media outlets are focused on national, international or state developments. I also have an highly developed sense of justice. Hypocrisy, especially from public officials, is a personal pet peeve. What keeps us going at VoxPopuli is knowing that if we don’t report the stories we do, no one will.

Recently, Winter Garden passed a resolution that makes it harder for journalists to do our jobs by curbing access to public officials before and after city meetings. According to the resolution, it’s a violation to “follow” officials to ask questions or request interviews. The new resolution also forbids reporters from asking questions during the public comments period of city meeting. VoxPopuli often uses that time during meetings to get officials on the record when they won’t respond to email questions. For instance, the Winter Garden mayor hadn’t responded to an email request for comment about the neo-Nazis distributing hate literature throughout the city. But asked for comment in front of a room full of people, he came up with a response, albeit a weak one. Afterwards, the city sent me a violation notice, threatening to ban me from covering meetings if I continued to ask questions of the mayor and commissioners during city meetings.

According to the First Amendment Foundation, the city’s media rules are a direct violation of the First Amendment as well as a Florida Statute that strictly limits the policies a local government can adopt regarding speaking during public meetings. I’ve called for a repeal of the media rules and am urging Winter Garden citizens to email the city manager and the city commission to request a repeal. When public officials want to stop the media from reporting, that’s when we need to push back hardest to make sure our First Amendment rights and the public’s right to know are fully protected.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wintergardenvox.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/wintergardenvox
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/wintergardenvoxpop
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norine-dworkin-she-her-6593594/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/gardenvox

Image Credits
Photos: VoxPopuli