Virginian Pilot Embraces Irrelevance

Today, Pilot’s editors illustrated in no uncertain way that they are determined to fade into irrelevance as a newspaper.

The headline story in the Sunday edition was a three page account of a fifty year-old murder. The writer obviously meant to dredge up doubts about the case even though there was a trial, the killer was convicted and even testified that he killed his victim.

The rest of the front page is devoted to the following stories:

1. “Stymied by Medicare? You’re not the only one”
2. “With Kaine Victory, Warner Basking in the Spotlight”
3. And the final front page story: “Churches try to get more to step up to the offering plate.”
   
   

With these moves, the Virginian Pilot now aspires to become the paid version of the free weeklies.

Meanwhile the Internet has these stories from overnight:


More Cars Torched in France Overnight (502)

Tear gas, unrest spread to Lyon

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Saturday that it may be possible to reach an agreement by the end of 2006 on the withdrawal of foreign troops from his country.

Al-Qaeda on defensive as bombs begin to backfire

Twenty slain as soldiers, Muslim extremists battle in Philippines

Feds accuse Southern Illinois University of bias against whites

Al-Qaeda calls Queen an ‘enemy of Islam’

But back to the Virginian Pilot.

On page A17 we are treated to a story about the riots in France. It contains this delicious quote: “Burning cars is rather typically French.” Strange. The last time I was in France, this national past-time was not pointed out to me.

One pages A18-19 we get more coverage with cut-and-past stories from the AP.

What does this mean:

As readership declines, the dead tree media are being advised to focus on local stories, realizing that that national and international news is going to be old news by the time organs like the Virginian Pilot print it. This is true now and, as more people are unable to get news from local newspapers, this trend will accelerate. In effect, the Virginian Pilot is ceding the important global news events to alternative media.

However, by virtue of the limited interest that people have in strictly local events, the need to subscribe to papers like the Virginian Pilot will decrease. The Virginian Pilot has already downsized its staff and has set itself on a course of steadily diminishing readership, influence and size.

At a point in the not too distant future, the Virginian Pilot may become a tabloid, given away free in newspaper boxes and supported by strictly by advertising.

But why would advertisers continue to buy space in media that attracts the attention of fewer and fewer readers. The trend to Internet advertising has already begun and is bound to continue. And since there is a finite amount of money available for advertising, the gains for alternative media will be at the expense of newspapers.

There is little that buggy whip manufacturers could do in once autos became popular, except go into the auto business. None did. Of course, newspapers have created web sites, but there is really very little reason to visit them. After all what can you learn from the Virginia Pilot web site that is not covered more comprehensively by Drudge and five or six national web sites that cover all the important events of the day – including hyperlinks so that readers can go to original sources.

If the people who edit newspapers were not such insufferable jerks, it would be possible to feel some sympathy for them. But having sat astride the pipeline of information, and abusing that responsibility of trust for so many years, I’m not a bit sorry.

Sayonara Virginian Pilot.