BACK BAY — Dear Mayor Dyer and members of the Virginia Beach City Council:
I live in Back Bay, and I publish a community newspaper. You know me.
I also have a fair bit of experience in public affairs, meaning public relations on behalf of government organizations. Also, I’ve taught writing, PR and journalism classes at a couple of local colleges.
I tell you that so you know I’ve walked both sides of the street dividing the folks who are supposed to govern and the folks who tell the rest of us how that’s working out. I’ve learned that one side of that equation shouldn’t handle both bits alone.
And I’ve worked twice at The Virginian-Pilot. I’m writing to talk to you about that newspaper’s failure as an institution.
The Pilot traditionally has been the largest media organization covering this city. It has the most reporters here. Many of its remaining readers are in Virginia Beach.
Now The Pilot is all but dead.
Eight journalists took buyouts last month. One of them is Alissa Skelton, who covered this government. You know her.
Another is one of my former Old Dominion University students. Her name is Amy Poulter. She was an intern at The Independent News, and she worked at Southside Daily before it folded. She is a terrific journalist, and our loss is Richmond’s gain. That’s where she’s moving.
Another is a friend of mine. I don’t know if I can use her name, but she’s my friend, someone I respect, someone who should still be writing our stories as only she can.
They’re gone because Tribune Publishing doesn’t care about the public service component of the local journalism we deserve.
That means news coverage in our commonwealth’s largest city — as well as for the rest of Hampton Roads — is now the afterthought of some out-of-town chain that is getting squeezed by a hedge fund.
According to the Tidewater Media Guild, which is the union that represents folks at The Pilot and the Daily Press, there were 101 journalists in its membership three years ago. After the buyouts, there may be as few as 36 left now between both The Pilot and the Daily Press.
And there is no bureau in Virginia Beach, not since 2019, not long after the darkest day in our city. Now reporters work from home, sometimes covering this city from other cities.
There is no more printing press on Greenwich Road. Those jobs are gone, and our local paper prints in Richmond. Since I used to print at the Greenwich plant, I have to print in Richmond, too.
I believe a competent local journalism organization should exist in Virginia Beach to cover our communities and public life.
There’s a request coming, but I’m not asking you to support The Independent News. I can’t scale up. I’m too small.
And I’m not asking you to subsidize journalism by dumping a whole bunch of money into a startup or nonprofit. That’s not the conversation we should have.
We do need to have a conversation now. Tribune’s game plan seems to involve The Pilot becoming even less useful. There may come a time when we look back at the days when The Pilot and Daily Press had a whopping 36 journalists.
What you can do is make a statement about the need for independent local journalism. You can even use the structure of government to hold a conversation.
You can do this even though the press can be annoying to powerful people like you.
Maybe you do it because of that.
The City Council can provide the framework for a needed conversation through a subcommittee or a task force.
At the end of the day, nobody should worry about The Pilot or my paper.
The talk is about what comes next and how smart people in a smart city can make it happen.
I’m available for that talk. Reach me at (757) 502-5393 or via email at jhd@princessannenidy.com.
Thank you for reading.
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