The Virginian-Pilot - Version 3.333 Part II

Or 10 things to do with The Virginian-Pilot - Part II

6. Stop charging for the newspaper. Give it away for free at 7-11 and WaWa, where most of the public goes in the morning and the afternoon. Offer: Buy 1 (coffee) get one free (newspaper). You can pitch this, even though we know the newspaper is free anyway.

7. Get rid of the carriers – they're a nuisance anyway, always whining and complaining that the newspaper's customers are always whining and complaining about the newspaper's lousy customer service which is now in Antarctica or some other remote location where no one speaks or understands English or any other language spoken on this planet.

Pissed off carrier

7. Turn the The Pilot into a tabloid. Get rid of the mutant broadsheet now being published. Reduces newsprint. Reduces costs. Reduces people. Reduces thought.

8. Publish the tabloid Monday through Friday, shut down Saturday and print a special Sunday edition – and charge $10.00 for it. Publish the first issue with a photograph of Ronald Reagan on the front cover. Believe me, demand for the newspaper will be higher than when Ed Schrock got into a little moral equivocation a few years ago.

9. Revamp the Pilotonline.com website. It looks like an online version of a newspaper that's been in the sun too long. Everything's crinkly and faded and crumbly, including the celebrity photos of editorial writers who, on a very, very good day, perhaps ten years ago, looked so good.

10. Put Dan Hoffler, Bruce Thompson, Linwood Branch, et al on the editorial board, since the newspaper will be Hqed at the Town Center in Virginia Beach. Bring back Pearl Smith as Ombudsman. Someone who convinced the public to buy into the Town Center is someone you want to pitch your newspaper.

See below for 1 to 5.