Chuck has been a journalist since 1975 when he started working at the local community radio station in his hometown of Marshall, North Carolina. He worked at the community station the last two years of high school. While at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, he worked as a newscaster at a commercial radio station and served as director of his university radio station.

After graduating from UNC-A, Chuck moved to Raleigh, North Carolina where he worked as a reporter and anchor at WPTF-AM and WQDR-FM and anchored news for a state-wide radio news network.

Chuck spent most of the rest of his journalism career at the Associated Press Radio Network, where he worked as a reporter and anchor – including covering Congress, the President and space shuttle launches. He also worked for AP News Features. In 2003-2005, Chuck did a Knight Fellowship in Mongolia, where he traveled throughout the country doing workshops with community radio journalists, newspapers and TV stations.

Chuck has also worked as a media consultant for Internews and the World Bank.

In 2007, he joined ICFJ and served as country director in Baku, Azerbaijan on an In-Depth Investigative Reporting Project. In November 2008, Chuck moved to Dili, Timor Leste, where he is currently the country director for phase two of ICFJ’s Strengthening Independent Media in Timor Leste project.