Alexandria Sands joins the Axios Charlotte team as a reporter

Why it matters: Alex is one of North Carolina’s brightest young journalists and she’s poised to become one of our city’s next star reporters. She’ll help to strengthen our news coverage and help us grow and evolve alongside our ever-changing city.

Background: After graduating from UNC Charlotte in 2019, Alex quickly established herself on North Carolina’s coast, first at the State Port Pilot in Southport, and then at the compelling online outlet Port City Daily in Wilmington.

• She’s already won three N.C. Press Association Awards in her budding career.
• During her college years, she had four (4!) internships: Charlotte magazine, CBJ, Creative Loafing and The Gaston Gazette.
• She did those while holding various leadership positions at the Niner Times, UNC Charlotte’s student newspaper.

Alex is versatile, passionate and driven. In Wilmington, she’s covered everything from local government to hurricanes to abundance of car washes to nitrous oxide balloons at jam band concerts.

What she’s saying: “I’m overjoyed to return to my favorite city and join Axios in its innovative approach to local journalism. I’m hoping to be a real asset to the community, producing impactful and informative work.

• “Feel free to reach out ([email protected]) with a story you’d like to see told, a question you’d like to be answered or to simply introduce yourself.”

Between the lines: Alex will be a familiar name to folks who’ve followed Charlotte news over the past decade. She interned at Charlotte magazine when Emma Way, now the deputy managing editor of Axios Local, was the magazine’s editor.

And she was interviewed by Emma and Danielle Chemtob, then at the Charlotte Observer, after the UNC Charlotte shooting at the end of Alex’s senior year.

Here’s Emma’s lead from that day, documenting how Alex and the Niner Times staff covered that terrible event:

THREE HOURS BEFORE A SHOOTING WAS FIRST REPORTED on University of North Carolina-Charlotte’s campus, Alexandria Sands tweeted that she was “officially a retired college newspaper editor. Thank you for letting me tell your stories, #UNCC.” At around 5:42 p.m., as she was sitting in the last class of her college career, she saw a message in a group chat for the Niner Times’ college newspaper staff. “There’s a shooter on campus in Kennedy,” it read.

Sands, the college paper’s outgoing community editor and a Charlotte magazine editorial intern, looked around her classroom on the second floor of Fretwell Building where nearly 20 students were working on a course evaluation for their Grammar for Writing course. The teacher had stepped out of the room, as is protocol for end-of-semester evaluations, and the door was open. “Guys, I think there’s a shooter on campus,” Sands said to the class.

In disbelief, the students all stared at each other and wondered what to do next. One student, who said she had some emergency training, wrapped a belt around the door hinge and tightened it. Another student shut off the lights as the rest of the class moved to the far corner of the room. Sands sat on the classroom floor, her laptop in her lap, and started writing.

Michael’s thought bubble: I still love that last line.

• But in fact, the first time I noticed the Alexandria Sands byline was in 2018, when I found myself mesmerized by a story in Creative Loafing about the old Philadelphia Deli on Kings Drive. It was handled with the care of a seasoned reporter, even though Alex was just a junior in college at the time.

What’s next: Alex is getting settled in and going through Axios’ orientation work this week. She’ll report to editor Katie Peralta Soloff.

One more staffing note: Back in April, Katie Peralta Soloff added “kick-ass mom” alongside “kick-ass reporter” and her many other titles, and she’ll be returning to work from parental leave in July.

• It’ll be the first time we’ve been fully staffed since we made some shifts this spring, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.