A Virginia Newspaper: Between Reason and Ridiculous

By my reckoning, the Virginian-Pilot will be a rag wrapped in coupons and glossy sticky advertisements by the end of this year.

By the end of this year, you might also hear and see that The Pilot, the passive/aggressive/passive no yes maybe voice of the community, will trim 25 percent of its workforce and $1.7 million in expenses, mostly by axing positions.

That is The Word, The Logos, on the street.

No amount of air time on the Cathy Lewis show assuring readers that change is good for readers or several columns of agonizing justification for the cut in pages, reporters, features, photographers and editors – but not news, we are assured – will convince readers that the investors and owners of The Pilot are really doing this for the good of the community.

They are doing this for the good of their pocketbooks. Understood. But don't say you serve the community while serving yourself.

The community, well, is fickle, and they really don't understand the newspaper business, you might hear them explain to each other in sterile dead language in effete offices. But they will never never say that to the the public. Never.

Print isn't dead. Yet. And yet.

It isn't that print is dead.

The owners and investors are dead.

They have been dead for a long long time and should have been carted to the morgue a long long time ago. Autopsied. Vivisected. Donated to Science. 

Long ago.

In 2002, not long ago, the newspaper industry employed 54,700 journalists in the newsroom, according to the American Society of News Editors.

In 2012, the number was 38,000, the lowest since the survey was first conducted its newsroom census in 1978.

Too bad someone hasn't tracked the rise and fall and rise again, if ever, of all the managers and co-managers and the horde of consultants that have squatted in offices or traipsed through the halls with flinty eyes saying you need to innovate or sell.

And you, by the way, are redundant, designer, reporter, photographer, and you should go.

And you and you and you.

Or just please retire, so we don't have to pay you a severance package and really damage my share price.

Or just get another job, please.

You cam smell the fear. You can feel the loathing. The newsroom always smells blood first before anyone else in a newspaper.

Another cut sends a message to the community.

But the message is garbled.

You persuade and assuage readers, yet you cut pages, columns and publish more wire releases.

You air your reasons and you get free air time to do it.

Yet your talking tour reveals your anxiety. If you need to assure readers, then you are afraid, very afraid. Or perhaps the message is intended for potential buyers. 

What kind of message does this send to the young talented journalists, designers and photographers you employ?

It says you have no future, so get the hell out now.

What does this say to the veterans?

Your time's coming. In fact, your time is nigh. It's not personal; it's just business.

Why wait. Wrap The Pilot in coupons and sticky glossy ads.

It just might make money.