A letter from our president

Birthday Weekday #2

Kelly Tidwell has been VNN’s big financial backer (and my biggest cheerleader) from the early founding days of VNN. 

I met Kelly while I was the weekend anchor at KXII in Texas. He supported my career from the get-go. When I said I wanted to leave my station to do news differently, he said let’s go for it. 

Decades of managerial experience teed Kelly up to be a great partner, while maintaining our majority happy, loving relationship. (We were married in December 2018.) He’s the ying to my yang in every sense of the word. Despite his opposition to sharing the limelight or having much of a public presence at all, he let me convince him to write this public letter! 

Thank you, Kelly, for making VNN possible! 

A letter from VNN President and CEO Kelly Tidwell 

At times August 1, 2021, through July 31, 2022, felt much longer than a single year. 

The pandemic dragged on. We got sick. Our kids got sick. Lives were lost. The economy worsened. Businesses closed. 

And people persevered. 

Through the hard times, our commitment to our communities strengthened and expanded. 

We learned that our communities wanted more investigative journalism, more Indigenous culture reporting, and more information services regarding politics and diverse community events. 

Our data and analytics team has been crunching numbers, identifying the specific topics you care about the most, so we can take it back to our news team and point them in the right direction. 

We know you’re tired of the same story being told on every channel. We are, too. There’s so much more out there. 

News gaps continue to grow. At VNN, we’re filling them.

Click to chip in to help us provide more diverse local news coverage in the new year. 

Thank you for your continued viewership and providing us the opportunity to better serve you. Together we are upgrading the news industry and our understanding of the world around us. I’m looking forward to growing more with you in the upcoming year. 

Yours Truly, 

Kelly Tidwell 

VNN President and CEO