Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 3, 1995 TAG: 9510030075
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Instead, Frosty - seldom is he called "Forrest," and to only the greenest rookie was he ever "Mr. Landon" - has moved to new digs on the second floor, next to the publisher's office. At age 62, he has left the post of executive editor, the top news job at the paper, to become an assistant to the publisher pending the outcome of a couple of irons in the fire.
We expect great things of the new executive editor, Wendy Zomparelli, in many ways an equally driven news person. But we can't let Landon's transition pass unnoted. The man is one of a kind.
That he is so widely known in the community comes in part from his living 40 years - as a radio and TV reporter at first, then as a newspaperman - in a city the size of Roanoke, from raising a family in a family town. But it comes, too, from being a tad, well, eccentric: the bow ties, the energy that today is still roughly the same as your average 22-year-old's, the diminutive stature, the fondness for ribbing, the quick smile, the argumentativeness.
But what the community in general may not realize, and what even some inside the newspaper may sometimes forget, is that Landon is more than merely a forceful personality. He's a character with character, and a heckuva newsman.
A certified member of the comfort-the-afflicted and afflict-the-comfortable school of journalism, Landon is a work-
aholic who lives by the creed that a daily newspaper is not just another product, but is an essential service for its region's readers.
The Roanoke Times, like most newspapers these days, isn't a reflection of any single executive. The influence of a topflight editor like Landon is subtler, to be measured by such yardsticks as the quality of the newsroom staff, the ability of the news operation to adapt to changing reader wants, and the adherence of the organization to core news values amid inevitable changes in the modes and styles of news presentation.
Although news and editorial remain strictly separate at this newspaper (our opinions having nothing to do with news coverage or those managing it), we cannot claim to be objective observers of Landon's news leadership. Nor would we claim that the paper's performance has been perfect. But three times a Pulitzer Prize finalist, for example, ain't chopped liver. Neither is the fact that, of more than 1,500 newspapers in the nation, the Times is among the top 20 in terms of household-market penetration.
As it happens, the editorial department is down the hall from Frosty's new office. Things on this floor should be livelier for a while.
by CNB