THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 24, 1995 TAG: 9508230003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
Enough, please. Save me from the community-advocacy direction taken by your newspaper and return to the tried-and-true values of journalism of yesterday.
They include, as I understood it from one of the master journalism teachers of all time, reporting the news without bias in clearly defined beats; i.e., crime, politics, sports, etc.; running a few features and columns, some editorials and letters to the editor. That's what Joe Nettles taught at the University of Richmond, where he turned out successful newsmen including your own Guy Friddell.
I realize that managing editor meetings held in exotic places require great discussion in order to take something home to justify the trip, but let's not go too trendy in order to impress the publisher.
There is a great abundance of community discussion, at churches, school meetings, supervisors meetings, city-council meetings, etc. Spare us more of this in your pages.
If I were in your shoes, I would (1) provide much more news at the state level, particularly at the General Assembly when it is in session, (2) cut most of your stories, which run far too long to hold the readers' interests and (3) concentrate on reporting the news rather than interpreting.
We don't need novel-long accounts of murder, rape and robbery. Of course you must report these, but don't saturate the paper with them. I'd like you to give me the facts of an event, clearly and concisely, and I'll do my own interpretation. If you want to comment on an event, do it in the editorial column.
This could be a much better newspaper, even though you must concentrate largely on news of interest to the military and devote half of the newsprint to auto ads. Just give me the news and I and thousands of other readers will be very grateful.
RANDOLPH WALKER
Machipongo, Aug. 1, 1995 by CNB