The Virginian-Pilot
©
NORFOLK
The Virginian-Pilot, battling the recession, will lay off 30 more workers and suspend the print version of Port Folio Weekly, its 26-year-old free arts and entertainment weekly.
Port Folio's last print edition will come out next week, said Maurice Jones, The Pilot's president and publisher. Its Web site, www.portfolioweekly.com, will remain, and The Pilot will consider reopening the weekly paper when the economy improves, Jones said.
The Pilot also will close Mix, a free multicultural monthly that began publication in 2007. The March issue will be Mix's last.
Both publications were losing money, Jones said.
"This is not an issue of, Did we have loyal readers of Port Folio and Mix?" Jones said. "This is an issue of not having an adequate advertising base to support the costs of producing the print products."
The Pilot, he said, is considering expanding its Thursday paper to incorporate features from Port Folio and increasing the frequency of its annual African American Today section to include material that would have appeared in Mix.
"Our goal is to strengthen the bond between The Virginian-Pilot and members of the arts community who have depended on Port Folio for editorial and advertising content," said Denis Finley, editor of The Pilot.
The 30 being laid off are 10 people at Port Folio and Mix, eight in online operations, six in The Pilot's newsroom, and six in other departments.
Near the end of 2008, The Pilot and its affiliated companies cut 150 positions, or about 12 percent of its work force, and shut Link, a free daily aimed at young adults. In January, the newspaper cut the number of pages it prints by 8 percent, ceasing publication of a daily business section except on Sundays.
The Pilot, Jones said, also has developed new sources of revenue, such as targeting advertisers for direct-mail services. It will open a social networking site for "busy moms" this summer, he said.
"We're further reducing costs to align with the new climate, which is brutal, but we're also doing things that we think are important for the future of our business," Jones said.
Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com
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For the green lantern
"It's amusing to see people bring out the self-serving argument, "If only the Pilot were a far-right paper, it would be doing fine.""
Who has made such a pronouncement? Who? The point is that the Pilot, like lots of other news rags in this nation, have made a choice to advance the agenda of just one side. The subscribing public would benefit from a forum that presents various sides of an issue, the Pilot abandoned that long ago. They don't have a single local editorial writer who presents a view point other than that of the present 'left of center' mindset. Because of that, they have lost large numbers of subscribers. I'll bet if they were indeed a "far right paper", to use your words, they'd end up in the same boat, because they would then be disenfranchising (assuming they acted as the Pilot does now, and all local views excluded all but their own chosen ones) those on the other side, who would seek their news and/or spend their money elsewhere. It's not so much 'the economy' as it is bad ownership/management decisions that are impacting the Pilot and other papers.
Its the economy not the internet stupid
You know it must just make the "intellectually" superior "open" minded "tolerant" sycophants absolutely crazy to realize that by lining up behind the dump on everything anti-capitalistic present democrat agenda that they have destroyed themselves. So quick are they to reprint as gospel words like "disaster" and "worse since the depression" yada yada yada bilge that our present leadership has been spouting since before the election. None of the reporters regurgitating this trash have even made a modest effort to balance this garbage with facts that contradict this negative propaganda. It was/is all a scam so they could pilfer the national treasury. Morons you work for a rich corporation owned by rich men! You managed to drive their market cap into the toilet, seize up credit, and get their enemies elected. Now you are unemployed. I hope this irony gives you solace while you are looking for a job from some, rich jerk, that owns a rich corporation that has no need for the worthless skill set you possess. You P0WN3D yourselves. BWAHAHAHA!
It's the internet, stupid.
It's amusing to see people bring out the self-serving argument, "If only the Pilot were a far-right paper, it would be doing fine." That may make you feel better, but it's just not so. Newspapers of every stripe, with editorial views from far left to far right, are slashing staff due to plummeting readership and freefalling ad dollars. Newspapers simply have not been able to find a business model which will work with the internet. Newspaper content is free, for the most part, online, and internet users have become used to the idea that information in general should be free. Certainly there are Web ads, but they bring in a fraction of the revenue of the old newspaper business model. Giving away your product - news - can't support a professional staff. I hope the Pilot turns it around. Its viewed in the newspaper world as one of the country's best papers.
"If you can't contribute
"If you can't contribute something positive you'd better get all your complaining out now, or you all very well may need to find a new place to gripe one day soon."
We will. Many of us already do. If you want advice; I can assure you it has been offered in the past but fell on deaf ears. The local paper forgot it's basic duty to deliver unbiased, and certainley untainted news. It's like losing the trust of a friend. It is never fully regained. Perhaps our online editor could describe to us his views on "flamers' as he calls them posting on his site. Everyone sees the slant from this publication. From other websites we all know the editor of the PFW was one of the most vocal writers to the ed under the alias TR.
I will stand and watch you fall off of the cliff. You failed in your duty. There is nothing to save.
True story. I've met a
True story. I've met a number of people who actually thought Portfolio Weekly was alternative press. When complaining about Hampton Roads, I often use the line that almost all of the print is from one source. Nine Volt ended up Landmark, The Pilot, Flagship, Inside Business, and Portfolio. I was surprised to find others surprised that Portfolio was the Virignian Pilot. Back when I was working on a project, the rate cards for advertising in Portfolio and Nine Volt were astronomical given the return you could expect. In recent times though, The Link and such were much much cheaper. I think there is a place for print media in the digital age (and I'm pretty digital), but you're going to have to be innovative. Perhaps the issue is the Pilot and Landmark has been such a monopoly for so long, they've gotten lazy. Pretend you've got a competitor. Think new (just don't charge 25 cents per comment, 50 cents if it mentions housing bubbles).
still wondering....
I have to assume that the VP has done demographic studies to determine their "target audience" and now are trying to appeal to that audience in the perspective of the publication. Have you considered that the identified group has no interest in printed matter? Are you going to return to your support base or just give up and go under? Notice how sport teams don't let the team go....they change the leadership....the ships going down, new leadership is overdue..
So much staff
I didn't realize the Pilot had so much staff to cut...it only takes one person to monitor the AP Wire, cut and paste an article, and push print.
Come On PILOT...how about some local news and some in-depth reporting on the issues!!
More of comments..
They place selected nationally syndicated columnists of both sides on their pages, but nary a ONE locally who can comment on elections, issues, etc.
Like I said, just ONE....
Comments...
A couple of quick comments in reply to posts...
"Who reads the newspaper anyway."
Well, I for one do. Until I find a way to comfortably take a laptop into the 'can', a newspaper is the way to go! THAT will truly spell the demise of papers, when the 'puters' are more easily handled and bandied about...
"The majority of you piss and moan, yet don't have the slightest clue what it takes to run a profitable publication, no less dozens of them in both print and online format"
Actually, I think many a poster here understands what's needed to run a business, and a publication is just another business. For one thing, you don't disenfranchise a significant percentage of your (potential) paying customer base by advancing the agenda of (politically) ONE side only! I guarantee you the Pilot wouldn't have any financial problems if they hadn't spit in the face of a huge number of subscribers by keeping their side of any given argument off the Op-Ed pages. I challenge any one here, name me one, ONE, local editorial writer who treads to the right. They place selected nationally syndicated columnists of both sides on their pages, but nary a ONE locally who can comment on elections, issu
No shoulder to cry on, no brickbats to throw
part 2
Alas, PFW should have kept to providing info on the arts and music scenes, movies and entertainment, restaurants and special events that it was known – and best loved – for. Instead, it featured an editor who fancied himself a writer for Bill Maher’s TV rant-show or the Huffington Post. (Although the publishers tried -- too late -- to save the nosedive by jettisoning him and getting back to basics.)
Over the last years, PFW offered a never-ending parade of unwelcomed political punditry that served up more whine than wine, more boasts than toasts, and too many unappetizing socio-political causes célèbres when readers (and hence advertisers) just wanted to know what time the movie started, which festival was happening next week, or which restaurant Chef Willie Moats was working for this week.