Legendary
A little boy comes home from school with tears in his eyes. He is “huskier than everybody else” at Tommy’s Road Elementary — making him an easy mark for those who take pride in teasing others. He is “picked on”...
Author: Kenneth Fine
Kenneth Fine is an award-winning journalist who resides in Eastern North Carolina. His early work covering the military saw him travel to New York on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and Afghanistan in 2009 to cover the Global War on Terror. More recently, he co-authored an investigative series that earned national acclaim and was republished in The Guardian and Saveur Magazine.
Fine has received dozens of honors from the North Carolina Press Association since 2005, but his most prestigious awards include the 2018 Phil D. Reed Environmental Writing Award, a 2018 Society of Environmental Journalists award, a 2018 Society for Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Award, and a 2018 Society for Features Journalism award.
You can reach him at kfine@newoldnorth.com
The Year of the Gun
A 17-year-old Goldsboro High School student was gunned down Dec. 29, but all anyone seems to be talking about on social media is the “Cougar Pride” being felt by alumni, parents, and staff because the school’s girls’ and boys’ varsity...
His eyes on the prize
It’s six o’clock in the morning and the sky is starting to brighten, but the streets that separate the apartment buildings tucked inside the West Haven housing projects remain dark. The groups of young men who were running the block...
A home invaded. A life interrupted.
It’s the middle of the night and Christian Hernandez’s heart is racing. The 20-year-old had closed his eyes a few hours earlier, but his sleep was abruptly interrupted when he saw his sister in his dreams. There is a massive...
Hitting home
There were already bullet holes in her bedroom window, but every time the police would intervene, Bailey’s abuser would find a way to pay his bond. He was no longer the beloved partner who fathered her children — the man...
Amid shortage, GPD can’t protect its own house
They are already working longer shifts and jumping, seemingly constantly, from call to call — unable to perform the preventative policing that stops crime before it happens. They are already “burned out” — and suffering from the hit to morale...
Belting it out
Wayne County Public Schools families packed the Goldsboro High School auditorium for three straight days as the district’s annual Choral Showcase took center stage. The following photographs were taken by Ken Fine:
Supporting act
I hear you’re asking around If I’m anywhere to be found. But I have grown too strong To ever fall back into your arms. “Jar of Hearts,” Christina Perri For a while, Megan Sutton’s heart was broken. Most people who...
Jayda’s gift
Aleah Hill drives toward the basket and pushes off with her right leg — elevating before softly lifting the ball through the net. The crowd goes wild, but the 14-year-old is focused on a single chant coming from the bleachers....
A link to the past
She only glances down at them for a moment — the used white syringes scattered outside the front of a Goldsboro landmark that has been standing for more than 100 years. But when Julie Metz approaches a sinkhole in between...