Outlet profile

Chapelboro

U.S. local news, mainstream center-left (Chapel Hill community)

Owned byChapel Hill Media Group, LLC, which also owns 97.9 The Hill (WCHL) radio. In a sale that closed Sept. 8, former owners Chris Ehrenfeld, Jim Kitchen and Mark Vitali sold to a local investor group. The group is led by general manager Aubrey Williams and includes John Stillman, Walter Storholt, Marc Killian and David Staley. The year of the sale was not confirmed in the sources I could read.

FundingMainly local advertising and sponsorships tied to the WCHL radio station and the website. It also runs a 'Support Us' page for reader contributions. It has no known nonprofit, state or large-donor backing.

On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

Chapelboro.com is the website of WCHL (1360 AM / 97.9 FM), a Chapel Hill radio station with a long local history. The station was owned for years by Vilcom, then sold to Curtis Media Group in 1997. Curtis moved it briefly to Durham before returning it to Chapel Hill in 2002. In August 2015, businessman Leslie Rudd bought WCHL and brought in local investors Chris Ehrenfeld, Jim Kitchen and Mark Vitali, who formed Chapel Hill Media Group, LLC. The group built Chapelboro into a daily local news site alongside the radio station. The three owners later sold to a new local group led by long-time general manager Aubrey Williams, who promised continuity in staff and programming. Its content is mostly local government, UNC, schools, business, elections and community news. It also carries sponsored and community-submitted content. Chapel Hill and Orange County lean Democratic, and the outlet's coverage, for example of election events, fits that community without a strong editorial or opinion voice. I found no major editorial controversies, and I could not read its recent coverage of Trump-administration policies closely.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-10-31; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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