Media General explores sales of newspapers
Media General announced on Wednesday that it is exploring the sale of its newspaper operations, including the Waynesboro-based News Virginian.
The Richmond-based company said it has received inquiries from third parties regarding the potential sale of its newspapers. Media General’s newspapers include The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress and The (Lynchburg) News and Advance. Continue reading “Media General explores sales of newspapers” »
If it’s broke, fix it
“Government isn’t designed to do a whole lot. It’s working the way our founding fathers planned for it to.”
At least Tim Williams is being honest about where he’s coming from. The quote is from a story in the News Virginian on Sunday looking at the long-delayed South River Greenway, which I’ve been writing about since my first couple of years in local journalism.
Dirt is finally supposed to turn on the project sometime next year, though I’ll believe that when I see it happening. Three city managers and four mayors, including Williams, have made similar pronouncements over the years.
To be fair, a big part of the holdup is the complexity of getting property owners along the river to sign off on having people walking and biking in their residential and corporate backyards. We’re not talking about a project where the city is, say, the owner of a parcel of land with the money and all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed just twiddling its thumbs waiting for Christmas.
The characterizations to the otherwise in the story from Williams and his successor as mayor, Frank Lucente, are interesting in and of themselves.
Read the rest of this column at TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
The World According To ChrisGraham.com: Keepin’ it real
I’m still here in Waynesboro playing journalist – and that suits me just fine.
The good news for my fellow News Virginian alums who had inexplicably followed Todd Foster down to Bristol – dude has moved on, which I’m sure suits them just fine.
Link to column on TheWorldAccordingToChrisGraham.com.
Phil Winter: Zero-based budgeting debate
Letter from Phil Winter
Submit letters, guest columns: freepress2@ntelos.net
The News Virginian’s April 24 article about “zero-based” budgeting brought back memories of the federal government’s use of this approach more than 15 years ago. It proved then to be a quickly passing, inefficient, and ineffective, fad. Current City Council member, and candidate for reelection, Lorie Smith has it right; the budget preparation process should focus on efficiently utilizing taxpayers dollars, not on starting over every year from a “zero base.” Continue reading “Phil Winter: Zero-based budgeting debate” »
Rose Bowl or Bust!
Column by Jim Gordon
Submit guest columns: freepress2@ntelos.net
Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, a young man who is a big sports enthusiast usually becomes an Ohio State football fan.
I was no different and since my dad was a graduate of the OSU Law School, he was able to get tickets to the Buckeye home games and once or twice a year, he took me to see them play before they started showing the games on TV on a regular basis. Back in the 50′s and 60′s, either Ohio State or Michigan went to the Rose Bowl almost every year, depending on who won the showdown in the final game of the regular season.
If the Bucks prevailed, everyone got together with their friends and watched the game on their 12″ black and while TV screens and my mom and I also enjoyed watching the Rose Bowl Parade, especially after more and more programs were shown in color and folks started buying color TVs in the 60′s. Continue reading “Rose Bowl or Bust!” »
The Pulse | Did you read that endorsement of Landes?
It wasn’t the most ringing of endorsements, to say the least.
“The preternaturally bland Steve Landes views his political career as that of a slogger trudging through legislative thickets whittling away tax and regulatory weeds. Accountants and morticians are peppier,” began the recommendation of the editorial board of the News Virginian in the 25th District published today, which went to Steve Landes, the incumbent Republican. Continue reading “The Pulse | Did you read that endorsement of Landes?” »
AFP InDepth | You’re going to make me pay now?
Local paper puts content behind pay wall
Valley newspaper publishers are watching with great interest how the Daily News-Record in Harrisonburg fares with its recent move to put its online content entirely behind a pay wall.
“That’s a pretty bold move. It will be interesting to see how it works out. I think publishers everywhere are rooting for them hoping that it works so it opens up a new revenue stream,” said Roger Watson, the publisher of the News Leader in Staunton.
“Online revenues nowhere that I know have shown the potential to support the traditional size and scope of news operations run by newspapers. So it makes no sense for newspapers to put their online products in direct competition with their print products, one giving away what the other seeks to sell. The DN-R’s move, I think, recognizes these realities,” said Lee Wolverton, the editor and general manager of the News Virginian in Staunton.
DN-R editor and general manager Peter Yates said the move, which was effective Oct. 1, is based on “the basic premise that our business has been based on for years.” Continue reading “AFP InDepth | You’re going to make me pay now?” »
Landes: ‘The White House is checking on whether they support the president’
Is Steve Landes using your tax dollars to track down wild partisan allegations that the White House is tracking your blogs and comments?
He told the News Leader for a story on the “Nazi” remark controversy published Friday morning that he has staff engaged in the pursuit of “information out there that the White House is tracking blogs and comments.” Continue reading “Landes: ‘The White House is checking on whether they support the president’” »
Chris Graham | The Valley’s Favorite
“Congratulations on being named the Valley’s Favorite News Reporter.”
“Huh?”
Some news reporter I am. The announcement was in the Friday, Aug. 28 News Virginian, in the paper’s annual Valley’s Favorites section, and I find out about it today at the high-school cross-country meet at Augusta Expoland.
Continue reading “Chris Graham | The Valley’s Favorite” »
Stop the Presses | Stuff
A lot going on today, requiring a better attention span than I have access to given my recent battles with summer allergies.
(Blame it on the rain. And being outside most of the weekend.) Continue reading “Stop the Presses | Stuff” »
In search of a leader on development
I give the News Virginian hell often enough that it is only fair of me to give kudos to the paper when deserved, and it’s deserved in the matter of the call in a Wednesday editorial for somebody on Waynesboro City Council to step forward and take the lead on downtown.
I’ll take their call one step further to suggest that we need, desperately need, even, for somebody to come forward to be the point person on City Council on economic development citywide. Continue reading “In search of a leader on development” »
Blast from the past
Posted by afp on December 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment
The resulting eight-part series never ran. It was to have debuted in the Saturday paper – back then the NV didn’t have a Sunday edition, so this was the big paper of the week, with all the sales papers in it and everything. The publisher, on an out-of-town trip, called in late Friday night and ordered the story off the front page. The reason: He’d been getting phone calls all day about the teaser that we’d run in the paper promoting the series.
Apparently, our effort to shed some light on how Waynesboro was embracing a new immigrant community didn’t sit well with the people who had the publisher’s ear. I resigned in protest, returning to the paper a year later after the publisher had been sacked, and in 1998 led a staff effort to chronicle the local Latino community that won the paper an award from the Virginia Press Association for in-depth and investigative reporting.
That feels like a hundred years ago now. Waynesboro has matured a bit since the old days. Which isn’t to say that we still don’t have some growing up to do.
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