Virginian Pilot and local ownership

A day or so ago a letter was published written by Perry Miles lamenting the loss of local ownership of the Virginian Pilot.

AM DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED that Landmark is considering selling The Virginian-Pilot (front page, Jan. 3). Having ownership of the local newspaper in the hands of local owners, especially those with deep family ties to the region, is incredibly important to a sense of community. No doubt the business reasons are compelling, and newspaper ownership is a business. But it can also be, and has been here, so much more.
Farewell to all that.

He referred to “deep family ties to the region” and “a sense of community.”

I wondered at that.

I’m at a loss to see how the Batten family’s ties to this region have helped the readers of the Virginian Pilot. As I said before (HERE) the Virginian Pilot is a terrible product…

...produced by people who have some serious issues. For one thing, they hold their customers in sincere contempt, dumbing down the product, insulting their intelligence, and disparaging their beliefs and morals. All the while providing a product that is so riddled with errors and so many quality control problems that if it were not for the First Amendment, there would be a “newspaper lemon law.”

And that “sense of community” Mr. Miles referred to? Is it the focus on reporting on local events and reprinting wire service stories for everything else? That, Mr. Miles, is due to the fact that the Virginian Pilot does not have the money or the desire to do anything about sending reporters outside of the local area except for some stunts.

Oh, and that sense of community apparently does not extend to the military; the largest part of the community. With the military success in Iraq spiked by the Virginian Pilot, today we get treated to a front page story (reprinted from the Washington Post!) about the sexual escapades of two soldiers (one man and one woman) which left the woman dead following an auto accident. Note that this gratuitous front page story has no local tie-in. But it does have a local effect on the military wives who read this bit of trash.

The billionaire Batten family has decided that the peak of the market has passed for media properties and are cashing in their chips. Don’t cry for them. And don’t cry for the loss of local ownership and for the editorial staff who are responsible for this lemon. There is little hope that the next owner will be better for the community given the ideological blinders members of the drive-by-media wear. But the sale of the Virginian Pilot is a hopeful sign that the old media monopoly is nearing the end of its life and that citizen journalists will take up the slack.