In defense of Charles Roark

Everyone in Martinsville and Henry County knows who Charles Roark is. I’m pretty sure babies in this area are born with some genetic memory of Charles Roark.

My introduction to Charles was in the mid-1990s. We would head to my grandparents’ house in Stanleytown every Thursday night for dinner. When you walked into the living room, you would hear two things: the police scanner chattering next to my grandpa’s easy chair, and Star News on the TV (of course, it was Cable 6 back then).

I could occasionally convince my grandpa to flip the channel so I could see the new episode of “The Simpsons,” but once the credits rolled, it was back to Cable 6.

I was fascinated by Cable 6, and if I’m being honest, I was a bit afraid of it. Charles and his crew seemed like they could turn up anywhere, ready to shove a camera in your face and ask you the hard questions. Whether you were a local politician, local law enforcement, or a local business owner, if you made a mistake or — even better — did something sleazy, you were going to be prominently featured on Cable 6, and then there was going to be a week of call-in shows devoted to letting Martinsville and Henry County’s finest call in and trash talk you.

I sometimes feared that if I did poorly enough on a math test, there was a chance Charles would appear at my school with his camera and ask me why I decided to disappoint my parents.

As I grew older, I followed Cable 6 and its evolution into Cable 18 and Star News. When I started working as a full-time journalist at the Martinsville Bulletin in 2012, I met Charles Roark for the first time. If you’re a journalist in this area, it’s impossible not to meet him; he’s at nearly event worth covering.

Charles couldn’t have been any nicer to me. He told me I was doing great work, and he personally invited me to every local political debate that he hosted at Hollywood Cinema. On a personal level, I don’t have a bad word to say about the man.

Now, I’m not going to say that I always agree with his methods. I’m not telling any tales out of school when I say that Star News can lean into the tawdry and sensational. But over time, I’ve developed a grudging respect for Charles’ approach to local news coverage. Charles Roark is very purely himself. He knows exactly what the people want to see and he’s good at providing it. And while he certainly has his detractors and critics, they don’t mind tuning in when the camera isn’t pointed in their direction.

All of this brings us to the Star News video that was sent to me Friday night. In the video, which was streamed live to Star News’ Facebook page, Charles is standing outside of Tequila’s Sports Bar and Grill in Martinsville. There had been a shooting at Tequila’s on May 17, and Charles explained that at a recent city council meeting, the council had requested that the Martinsville Police Department have officers on standby at “hot spots” such as Tequila’s on busy nights. Charles was there to see if there were any police officers present.

During the course of the video, he’s told to leave by multiple people; he informs them that he’s on the sidewalk, which is public property. He’s right.

Multiple people also tell him that he doesn’t have the right to record them in public. He informs them that legally, he does. He’s right.

Throughout the stream, a woman follows him from the parking lot and then stands on the steps in front of the business and yells at him. Then, for reasons known only to her, she suddenly approaches him and assaults him in the street. You hear him get knocked down, and you see a fair amount of blood running down his arm. Nobody comes to his aid. In fact, most people just laugh.

In a follow-up livestream, a police officer finally arrives and tells Charles that the owner is trespassing him. In both videos, however, no one seems to care too much that the man has just been violently assaulted in the street. And this is not the first time in recent months that Charles has had an interaction with a police officer that makes it seem as though his safety and rights are not a priority.

I can appreciate that if you’re in local law enforcement and you see Charles Roark arrive on the scene of a crime, your night is about to become a little more complicated. But that’s the nature of the First Amendment; the government can’t abridge your freedom of speech or the freedom of the press. You don’t have to like it, but Charles had every legal right to stand on the sidewalk Friday night and record. By the end of the video, he may have been physically assaulted, but on a reputational level, he was the only person to emerge unscathed.

Local journalism is more important than ever before. A large percentage of the country absolutely hates “The Media,” and that’s not limited to talking heads on big cable news channels. To make matters worse, local newspapers are operating on skeleton crews, and it’s a challenge to cover every single local government meeting. It’s crucially important to have journalists at these meetings; our elected officials need to know that the Fourth Estate is keeping an eye on them and keeping them honest.

You might argue that Charles arrived at Tequila’s that night hoping to start a scene and get some good viral video. That may be true. But you could also argue that he was holding city council and the Martinsville Police Department accountable; city council asked that police officers be on the scene at “hot spots,” and Charles went to find out if that request was being fulfilled. For the record, it sure didn’t seem to be. I can understand that the business owner may not be thrilled to have Charles there, but if you serve alcohol and a shooting takes place on your premises, you should expect a little media scrutiny in the aftermath.

My journalism may be limited to columns now, but Charles Roark is still a peer and a colleague, and his public assault and the apathy that followed sets an absolutely terrible precedent.

Back in 2019, the city of Martinsville passed a resolution relating to the Second Amendment Sanctuary movement. Now might be the time to pass a resolution for a First Amendment Sanctuary.