Why read the Virginian Pilot?

Question: Why read the Virginian Pilot?

Answer: To remind yourself that’s it’s a waste of perfectly good trees.

Lest I be accused of making unsupported accusations, let me use today’s section A as an example. The headline is “Norfolk didn’t fit Ford plan.” This leads a story about Ford’s announcement that it is closing the local F-150 truck plant in 2008.

Now, that is worth covering because Ford is a major employer and the closing was unexpected. The problem with this as a “news” story is that by the time it hit the front porches of it’s readers, you would have had to be comatose or dead not to have heard the news – and in greater detail. So as a “news” story, it told us nothing we did not already know. All that is left is the “human interest” angle and, sure enough, there was the obligatory story of three generations of the Spruill family who worked at the Ford plant.

Isn’t this what Oprah does, only better?

On to page A2. There is a section called the “1 minute news.” It begins with a sentence about members of the Woodland Heights Baptist Church nailing their sins to a wooden cross. The other 1 minute news items are in the same vein. The rest of the page is devoted a large graphic of the weather over the next 24 hours, an ad for Priority Auto, and Public Editor Marvin Lake making corrections. Example: “Antwan Thorne Sr., who was killed earlier this week, was 23 and last resided in Portsmouth. Due to source errors, Thorne’s first name, age and city of residence were incorrect…”

Half of Page A3 is devoted to “Bush Gives Rumsfeld strong endorsement,” U.S. Won’t do business with Palestinians,” and “Rumsfeld: U.S. sought balance in troop levels.” The other half is devoted to and auto ad for Charles Barker Infiniti.

On to page A4, with about 70% taken up by a Verizon Wireless ad.

The other stories: “Report on failed space docking withheld,”

Florida: Suspect in shooting death of boy found 30 years later,”

Pennsylvania: Man jailed after beating death of girlfriend,”

Pennsylvania: Father, two of triplets die in wood chipper incident.”

(Busy day in the Quaker State)
Can you guess which editor found these stories worth printing? Me neither.

Page A5. The profit motive strikes again: roughly 65% of the page is taken up by ads for cars, hot tubs and windows. The other headlines are “Missouri couple who profited from sextuplet story charged,” "Tax returns show Bushes earned $735,180; Cheneys $8.82 million,” and “Man called hero faces drug, gun charges.”

Page A6 has a story on the tornadoes in Iowa and “Government considers giving refund on phone tax.” Two-thirds of this page is devoted to ads for the Perry auto dealership.

Page A7. More auto and furniture ads. A little over half the page is devoted to news: “Reid won’t appear in Moussaoui trial,”
“6-year-old girl killed, mother, toddler hurt after black bear attack.,”
“Police try to interview Duke team about party,” and
“Agent who shot self while talking to kids sues DEA.”

Page A8 and A9 are exclusively devoted to full color ad for a Haynes Furniture sale. Read all about “Pine elegance dining… and 92 inch 100% leather sofa.”

Page A10 is devoted to Iraq. Most of the page focuses on the dead, the injured and a critical article from the AP headlined “Report questions Iraqi security spending.” When I say “devoted” by the way, I mean that a little less than half is devoted to “news” articles, the rest of the page is devoted to ads.

Page A11 is 75% ads. The rest is a picture of a Uruguayan cowboy being thrown from a horse at a rodeo … in full color. What a scoop! The rest of the page is a story about the Woodland Heights Baptists and their practice of writing their sins on index cards and nailing them to a cross. (Remember page 2?)

I’m going to stop with page A13 because this is beginning to bore even me. But this page actually has some interest, first because more than half is devoted to news and, second that some of the news is important. For instance “Iran’s president says Israel soon will head toward annihilation.”

Now this is important. Wasn’t there someone in the dim past who also wanted the Jews exterminated? Who had a “Final solution?” Who made no secret of his plans; even writing a book about it? What was his name?

But that person only had bullets and gas chambers. His “Final solution” was fairly cumbersome, and as a result, some Jews survived. Iran is developing a nuclear bomb, a much more efficient tools for a “Final Solution” and this story find it’s way on to our poor dead trees among the car, piano and tax preparation ads on page A13 of the ever vigilant Virginian Pilot.

Pathetic.

“True to the Democratic Party in victory of defeat.” (Virginian Pilot Official Slogan (it's true).