THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501110105
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Several times in recent years, readers upset about inadequate coverage of this or that event have offered their view that one factor contributing to this is that so few staffers of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star live in Suffolk.
If all they do is drive into town for an occasional meeting or even for regular, daily work hours, the readers have asked, how can the people reporting, photographing and editing the news even presume to know what is important to Suffolk residents?
No wonder Suffolk so often is left out of regional stories, the callers say; the news staff doesn't even think of Suffolk.
I see this view as a paradoxical affliction: a feeling that Suffolk somehow is so different from its Hampton Roads neighbors that the only way to really know the city is to become part of it.
Yet a goodly number of us recoil at the notion that Suffolk is somewhere ``out there,'' greatly separated from urban Norfolk and oceanfront Virginia Beach. Being overlooked may be even worse than having had the paper get it wrong.
Truth is, Suffolk is much closer geographically than many people think and - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the topic - much more akin to our neighbors than different from them.
Virginia Beach worries about Lake Gaston; Suffolk is concerned about residents lacking municipal water and sewerage. Chesapeake frets about keeping traffic moving in a city that has grown too fast; Suffolk nervously awaits growth. Norfolk and Portsmouth bear the burdens of built-out cities; Suffolk faces the challenge of preserving agricultural heritage while defining itself as a city.
And all share broader concerns: paying for municipal services, meeting the health and safety needs of citizens, preparing their schoolchildren for a world becoming increasingly competitive.
Still, Suffolk retains much of the character of its earlier years, when agriculture was its primary industry and the city was a tiny, urban center with a downtown flooded with shoppers and Whaleyville and Holland were municipalities instead of tiny units of a huge city.
It's not all bad that some people remember fondly the good old days and don't want Suffolk to become another cookie-cutter city of stores and shopping centers found across the national landscape. Towns and cities need preservers, and they probably are the ones most frustrated that, in their opinions, those covering the news of Suffolk know so little about it.
Reporters are more transitory now, due in great part to the team approach to news. One group, for instance, covers municipal government, although one reporter has primary responsibility for Suffolk. Same for education and other topics that cross geographic boundaries.
And in this era of the information highway, background information often is a matter of the nearest computer instead of contacting a local person in the know. The approach is clearly not as personal, but it makes sense and cents.
Even so, several Sun staffers do live in Suffolk. The way we cover the news matters to us not only as professionals but as citizens.
We want the rest of Hampton Roads to know that we're here and that we share a great deal with them. That's a big challenge and the underlying reason I chose to return as Suffolk editor.
It's exciting to be able to work in a city of such tremendous potential and to call it home. I want our newspapers to be not only the keepers of history but among the forces charting Suffolk's future.
In coming weeks, we'll be looking at ways to better reflect what Suffolk and the other areas covered by The Sun are all about. We could use your help.
Stop by. Or give me a call at 934-7553 during work hours, or 446-2494 (Comment Line) anytime. Thanks. by CNB