Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 1, 1995 TAG: 9507030004
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The latter has served as our title since 1977, when the morning and afternoon editions - The Roanoke Times and The World-News - formally were merged.
But most readers and advertisers, even our own staffers, kept referring to us as the Roanoke Times. Today, our name catches up with reality.
It also travels back to the future. Under changing flags and typefaces, partnerships and publishers, editors and editorialists, this newspaper has been around more than a century.
M. H. Claytor of Bedford County started the Times in 1886. His inaugural editorial didn't mess around. The paper, it said, "is purely a business enterprise. It will be conducted for the purpose of making a support for its publishers."
The editorial went on to declare that the newspaper would be "the mouthpiece of no order, corporation, party or clique." But it would have a mission: "It shall be the future policy of The Times, while not eschewing politics altogether, to make the material interest of the people among whom it has cast its lot tantamount to that of every other consideration."
In 1909, J. B. Fishburn and partners bought the Times and its sister, the Evening News. Their first editorial announced the Times would be "democratic and conservative." Fishburn went on to buy the Evening World, and later became Roanoke's leading benefactor. His family name remained associated with the newspaper for 60 years.
Norfolk-based Landmark Communications bought the company 26 years ago. Landmark's chairman, Frank Batten, has said that our duty is to serve the public with skill and character, with reporting and editing that are distinguished by balance, fairness and authority, and that present an accurate picture of our community. The independence of our news and editorial staffs is not for sale. Nor are there sacred cows. But we will be generous in coverage of achievement. And we will not pander to passions or forget for a moment the power of the printed word to do wrong as well as right.
Grand sentiments, to be sure. But we believe in them. We may not always live up to them, but we try.
This isn't to suggest the newspaper is not changing. We change constantly. Today, we transmit information via telephone and Internet as well as newsprint. What we'll be doing tomorrow, we can only imagine.
The newspaper's values and purpose, though, should abide. With customers as our partners, we'll continue working for the betterment of our community; we'll also continue trying to do a better job of what we do.
The name-change drops two words, a hyphen and an ampersand. There's nothing new to get accustomed to, since you've probably already been calling us The Roanoke Times, along with possibly some other names.
Once upon a time, when cities supported multiple daily newspapers, the World and the News were living things. But they have long since become relics destined to be swept aside by the times, along with that oversized but delicate ampersand. Today, we salute their passing. Life goes on.
by CNB