Our mission hasn't downsized

Job reductions won't change the Observer's commitment to inform and engage readers.

If you caught your news on TV or radio last week, you learned that water mains had burst like balloons across south Charlotte.

Newspaper gets new look, feel

Most of the newspapers we printed today have a slightly different look and feel.

Rick Thames: We're under construction

You won't really see tall cranes over our building right now. But we are in the midst of a remodeling project to update the look and feel of your newspaper, as well as add some great new features.

Observer series named Pulitzer finalist

`Sold a Nightmare' couldn't have been done without readers

Rick Thames: In American journalism, there is no Final Four. There's the Final Three. And a team of Charlotte Observer journalists reached that rare pinnacle on Monday.

• Archive | Sold a Nightmare

Do foreclosures highlight need to change city's growth policies?

Observer reporters examine clustering of low-cost housing

Any home is almost certain to lose value if it's near a cluster of similar homes under foreclosure. Buying a home like that, on its face, is a shaky investment.

Catawba series flows naturally from past stories

We tend to view it in pieces, or perhaps as a string of dammed-up lakes.

A tragic case led reporter to dig deeper

Homeless man's plight foreshadowed delays in getting disability help

If any good comes from today's Page 1 story about thousands of disabled Carolinians who are stranded within the bureaucracy of Social Security, we can all thank a man named Ronald McKoy.

Easy-credit loans can be hard on us all

Observer series shows destabilizing threat to entire communities

When a gleaming new house goes up, and the homeowner moves in, most people celebrate that as good growth.