Why subscribe?
Armchair Lehigh Valley is a grassroots newsletter that aims to provide information on federal, state and local elections and politics in Lehigh and Northampton counties.
For many in the Lehigh Valley, it has become increasingly difficult to figure out who is running for office and what they stand for.
Voters often must rely on campaign mailings, yard signs, social media and word of mouth. For many, election day ends up becoming a mad scramble for information.
Armchair was born of this frustration. We aim to give voters factual information in a nonpartisan way to help them make informed decisions at the polls. Our newsletter is free.
Why the name Armchair?
Volunteers, including journalists with decades of experience at The Morning Call in Allentown and elsewhere, will take an armchair approach to research. Working with computers from our armchairs – or desks, kitchen tables and sofas – we will cull readily available information from a host of sources, including public documents, nominating petitions, campaign finance reports, ethics reports, social media, press releases, campaign websites and non-partisan amalgamators of election data.
Information will be archived with headlines here that will make it easy to find races.
We also will keep a watch on news regarding election laws, redistricting, voting by mail and related issues.
Information can be sent to armchairlehighvalley@gmail.com. Anyone wishing to learn more about us can email us as well.
Nonprofit status and board of directors
Armchair Lehigh Valley is a nonprofit corporation registered in Pennsylvania and received 501c3 status with the Internal Revenue Service
Armchair Lehigh Valley has a board of dircectors: Sara Vigneri, lecturer of Media & Communication at Muhlenberg College; Tim Darragh, associate editor for A.M. Best; Robin Davies, data operations and privacy director at Ford Motor Company, and Pete Leffler, former political editor for The Morning Call and The Baltimore Sun.
To read our bylaws, you can download them here:
Editorial independence & donor transparency
Armchair Lehigh Valley is a member of the Institute for Nonprofit News and subscribes to standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News.
Our organization retains full authority over editorial content to protect the best journalistic and business interests of our organization. Our board of directors is not involved in day-to-day operations and decisions on content. We maintain a firewall between news coverage decisions and sources of all revenue. Acceptance of financial support does not constitute implied or actual endorsement of donors or their products, services or opinions.
We accept gifts, grants and sponsorships from individuals and organizations for the general support of our activities, but our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support.
Our organization may consider donations to support the coverage of particular topics, but our organization maintains editorial control of the coverage. We will cede no right of review or influence of editorial content, nor of unauthorized distribution of editorial content.
Our organization will make public all donors who give a total of $5,000 or more per year. We will accept anonymous donations for general support only if it is clear that sufficient safeguards have been put into place that the expenditure of that donation is made independently by our organization.
2023 Armchair Lehigh Valley budget
Income: $10,000
$2,400 – stories provided to news outlets
$7,600 – Donations from subscribers, individuals, NewsMatch
Expenses: $6,365
$150 – INN membership
$375 – Legal fees
$815 – Media liability insurance
$2,625 – General liability insurance
$1,000 – Freelancers
$200 – Miscellaneous expenses (photocopies, court records, voter registration data)
Note: Staff members are not compensated
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