The Virginian-Pilot - Version 3.333

Or 10 things to do with the Virginian-Pilot.

1. Sell The Pilot – excuse me, I mean the news organization which includes the flagship newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot – to a group composed of Bob Aston, chairman of Towne Bank, Bruce Thompson, our very own Donald Trump, John Lawson, construction magnate, and anyone of the top 25 most influential individuals on Inside Business' list of top 25 most influential people.

If you think life is hell under present management, just wait until these scions of commerce, politics and power run the show. You will begin to yearn for those halcyon days under the Battens.

2. Put Walt Taylor – Cafe Stella habitue, beer hall habitue, artist, illustrator, comedian...-- in charge of The Pilot newsroom. 

Taylor, a wry commentator and sly observer of humanity, will inject some comedy into the loneliness and despair of the daily Purgatory of the newsroom.

3. Shut down The Pilot's headquarters on Brambleton Avenue and relocate it to the Town Center in Virginia Beach where conservatives proliferate.

That will stop all the whining and complaining that The Pilot is a liberal newspaper with a liberal bias and a bastion of liberal thought with reporters who are liberal, free-thinking firebrands and anarchists. Though some of this might be true, it is perception that counts.

4. Non-profit-size The Pilot. Transfer The Pilot's ownership to a Foundation with a non-profit status. Have the journalists run the show. Have them do the numbers.

Noble idea, though very naive. Journalists don't run anything. They run into, around, up and down, talk talk talk, and chase, stalk and kill, but put them in charge of a newspaper? They'd be so busy talking about the topic to discuss to write and edit that you'd never see an issue. And managing numbers? Forget about it...

5. Sell the news organization to Jeff Maisey, publisher of Veer Magazine and Virginia Craft Beer.

At least he knows how to make a profit. 

To be continued...