''The Hook'' was a weekly

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

published in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

, and distributed throughout Central Virginia and the

Shenandoah Valley The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridge- ...

. It was founded in 2002 by a number of former employees of another Charlottesville weekly, ''C-ville Weekly,'' including its co-founder and editor Hawes Spencer. In 2007, 2009, and again in 2013 ''The Hook'' won the Virginia Press Association Award for Journalistic Integrity and Community Service, the VPA's highest honor. ''The Hook'' features included the "HotSeat" (in which Charlottesville notables answered questions about everything from what is in their refrigerator to their most embarrassing moments), "4BetterOrWorse" (an often humorous summary of local and national news items), and the "Culture Calendar". ''The Hooks

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showed the streetscape of Charlottesville's Downtown Mall, a pedestrian promenade that includes the local Ice Park and Jefferson and Paramount theaters. In addition to print, ''The Hook'' branched out into other media in 2006 with the launch of its

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

and weekly

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. In 2013 The Hook went out of business. In June 2022, its 22,000 stories were removed from the internet, which ''The Washington Post'' reported was a possible catch-and-kill operation to bury coverage of a sexual assault allegation and suspected was carried out by an investment banker named Curtis N. Ofori. Following journalism about the removal of the articles, a "mysterious benefactor named F" presented an archive and committed to keep the content available. The "website appears to be complete, including links to all issues of The Hook, but the site's internal search engine appears to be disabled."

Notes

External links

The Hook Archives
(2002–2013) Alternative weekly newspapers published in the United States Publications established in 2002 Publications disestablished in 2013 Mass media in Charlottesville, Virginia Defunct newspapers published in Virginia 2002 establishments in Virginia 2013 disestablishments in Virginia {{Virginia-newspaper-stub