Help us protect local journalism and preserve local history - restore The Hook website!

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Last year, the publishers of C-Ville Weekly, who also published The Hook newspaper before they shut it down in 2013, transferred ownership of The Hook's website/archive to an anonymous buyer. Earlier this year, that anonymous buyer removed the website/archive from the internet, effectively erasing over a decade of award-winning local reporting from the web. C-Ville Weekly's publishers have so far refused to explain why they made the decision to sell the website/archive to an anonymous buyer.

The Hook won over 150 awards from the Virginia Press Association (VPA) during its 12 years of publication. While other fine newspapers (and online-only news websites) in town have won VPA awards, The Hook also won the VPA’s highest honor, the Award for Journalistic Integrity and Community Service, three times. To put that into perspective, the only other newspaper in Charlottesville to win the award, which was first handed out in 1947, was the Daily Progress in 1964.

It…