Welcome to Southpoint Access

Welcome to Southpoint Access

Welcome to Southpoint Access, an online news site dedicated to coverage of ultra-local news in neighborhoods around South Durham, N.C.

I’m Wes Platt, editor and publisher and neighbor – I live right here in Hope Valley Ridge with my wife, Catherine Constantinou, and our two children, John Michael and Athena.

Wes Platt and his family meet with Santa at Wool E. Bull's Winter Wonderland 2023.
Wes Platt and his family meet with Santa at Wool E. Bull’s Winter Wonderland 2023.

What qualifies me to do this job?

Besides living here since 2011, I have decades of experience as a professional journalist, including my first career at The St. Petersburg Times and then a later stint at The Herald-Sun in Durham. I’ve written about everything from crime and courts to politics to land development to education, but where I’ve always felt most at home has been local community news.

Things you need to know about this site

  • All basic content – news, features, sports – is free to read. No paywalls for that. However, I do ask that readers at least become free subscribers at the Neighbor level to gain access to the stories here. (As of Dec. 29, 2023, the Neighbor barrier comes down on a story after 24 hours.)
  • Paid subscriptions are available on a monthly and annual basis. These are a great way to support ultra-local news in South Durham and will earn you shout-outs and access to special content above and beyond the news.
  • What we cover: Development news, government, education, human-interest features, youth sports, business, and local trends.
  • What we don’t cover: The usual “if it bleeds, it leads” stories about murder and mayhem. I’ll leave that sort of news to the TV stations. However, if we are seeing trends in certain crimes in this area, I wouldn’t refuse to write about that. I just spent enough of my early career writing about people doing horrible things to each other that it’s not how I want to spend this phase.

Where We’re at on Social Media

You can find Southpoint Access (and me) on various social media sites, including:

Thanks for checking out Southpoint Access and don’t hesitate to reach out via email at southpointaccessnews@gmail.com.