Newsprint savings won't diminish quantity or quality of news

My six-year-old daughter and I swim at the Downtown Norfolk YMCA on Saturday mornings. Lately, we’ve been playing a simulated basketball game while in the pool. We use a lightweight, buoyant ball as a basketball and a hula hoop as the basket.

As always, my daughter sets the rules. And when she desires to change them, I am notified, not asked for consent. Lately, her main standard has been: when Daddy makes a shot, move the basket further away from him to make his next shot tougher. Each time we play, I get better. I make shots that are further away. However, you can guess how this story ends: she always wins; and we always have a great time!

The pool game reminds me of a lesson that seems particularly relevant during these tough economic times: striving to be excellent is about eternally raising the bar. This unprecedented recession is the longest on record since the Great Depression. To remain competitive, most businesses have had to do more with less, reduce costs, eliminate waste and be more creative. The Virginian-Pilot Media Companies is no exception.

Despite revenue declines, we continue to strive to be your No. 1 source for local news, information and commentary. Our goal is also to remain the most effective advertising choice, bringing together buyers and sellers throughout Hampton Roads. And we are hustling to provide unparalleled customer service by delivering our products to your doorstep, mailbox, street box, retail outlet or computer before you rise in the morning and throughout the day.

Solid business results are the prerequisite to achieving the public service goals mentioned above. “No margin, no mission!” So, we are continuously looking for ways to align our expenses with the reduced revenues available in this economic climate.

The latest change in this pursuit is the reduction in width of The Virginian-Pilot by one inch. We will start this change next Sunday and complete it by mid-month. When it is done, the width of The Pilot will shrink from 12 ½ inches to 11 ½ inches. This small change will save us money on the costs of newsprint. This will help us keep the business healthy, so we can continue to provide you with news, information, commentary and advertising that you value.

Newsprint savings will not diminish the quantity or quality of news we provide. We will continue to report on state and local governments, offshore drilling, education, transportation, health and safety. Investigative reporting and the good deeds of others remain a priority. The amount of coupons and other advertising content will also be preserved.

However, we will raise the bar on our editing efforts. We will have to edit our paper smarter and harder. But you have my word that we will do our best to make the transition seamless.

While doing this, we will continue to produce PilotOnline.com; HamptonRoads.com and HamptonRoads.tv, the most visited local Web sites in the region. We will continue to publish 20-plus niche publications like Inside Business, The Apartment Book and The Flagship. And we will continue to offer targeted marketing solutions via Pilot Direct, our direct marketing business.

Signs of economic recovery are all around us. Housing prices are beginning to stabilize. Auto sales show modest gains. And jobs are not being lost at the rates that we saw earlier in the year.

These facts are a tribute to the people and institutions in our region. We’re all a little leaner and meaner. Our futures remain bright because we continue to raise the bar.

Thank you for reading us, viewing us, advertising with us and providing us with feedback to help us get stronger. Your partnership is indispensable to our growth. If you have any questions, advice, criticism or other feedback, please post a comment here or email me at maurice.jones@pilotonline.com or call (757) 446-2056. 

Sincerely,

Maurice A. Jones

President and Publisher

The Virginian-Pilot Media Companies

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Pilot slimming down by an inch on Oct. 3

Beginning next Sunday, your Virginian-Pilot will look a little different. We will start reducing the width of the paper by one inch. Why? To save newsprint costs so that we can continue to deploy the largest newsgathering staff in the area for you.

Newsprint is our second largest expense after salaries. In these tough economic times, we must do everything we can to control expenses, but we would rather trim the paper a little than cut more journalists.

The change to the paper will not happen all at once. Next Sunday, you’ll see big borders around some pages. Slowly, all the pages will have large borders and then in about 10 days or so, the entire paper will be one-inch narrower. Our city tabs will become a little squatter, almost a square shape.

We showed a prototype of the new size to a group of readers recently, and, to our delight, they all said they liked it, because it was more portable and easy to hold.

We reduced a lot of the components of the paper proportionately, headline sizes for example, so that we could keep as much room for news as possible. And, because of the way we print the paper, our city tabs lose virtually no space for news. We did not change the size of our body copy, which is the font you are reading right now.

You’ve told us you like it, so you would have to hold a gun to my head to get me to change it.

Nothing else about The Pilot will change. We will continue to bring you authoritative, credible, helpful and unique content every day. Who else but The Virginian-Pilot will write stories about a state delegate’s potential misuse of tax dollars, answer your questions about health care and swine flu, or tell you a story about the German U-boats that prowled at our doorstep during WWII?

As long as we are here, we will continue to watch out for you and cover our community with the highest journalistic standards. Let’s just say we will be doing it with a little slimmer profile. 

Denis Finley

Editor

The Virginian-Pilot

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Commenter's "Town Hall" meeting at The Pilot: A recap

Thanks to everyone who came out Tuesday night to the first "town hall" meeting for frequent commenters (and frequent comment readers) on PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com.  We had a lot of good debates, ideas, agreements and disagreements. We hope to do it again. 

In the meantime, if you'd like to have your opinions heard -- about comments or any other content or functions on our web sites -- consider joining our new online users panel, which we're in the process of setting up.  If you're interested in joining the panel, simply send a note to moderator@pilotonline.com and we'll get back to you.

Several ideas were presented by our online commenters and readers at Tuesday night's meeting, and we'd like to share the list with you. We will be examining the ideas to see what can be accomplished and when.  What are your thoughts?  Leave your comments -- and ideas -- below. 

Here's the complete, unedited list of ideas:

SUGGESTIONS FROM PILOTONLINE.COM/HAMPTONROADS.COM USERS

Commenters meeting, Sept. 15, 2009

 In the rules, list some of the “bad words” in the bad word filter

 Provide spellcheck

 Provide edit function for posts

 Require real names.

 Don’t require real names.

 Require real names for Bletters only.

 Create automatic e-mail notice for rules violations and removal of auto-comment status.

 Announce that some comments may be used in print.

 Reverse-publish more comments on opinion pages.

 Take poll question suggestions from readers.

 Add “none of the above” option on all polls.

 Establish “skill level” for new commenters.

 Allow longer comments (more than 750 words).

 Require shorter comments (under 750 words).

 Bigger indent or different colors for threaded comments to make responses stand out.

 More forums/create your own forums.

 Refer to community blogs from appropriate stories.

 Notify users by auto-email when someone posts a topic of interest to them.

 Show number/perpetual counter of page views on each story.

  Allow comments on AP stories and syndicated content.

 Establish ranks for posters: “super posters” for long-time posters who behave, etc.

 Create a HamptonRoads.tv video on “how to post comments.”

 Give away tickets, promo items to commenters.

 Allow commenters to find out who gave them a “thumb.”

 Allow advertisers to use comments in ads.

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Commenter town hall meeting has wrapped up

The Commenter town hall has wrapped up. But if you’re reading at home (or work), please share your thoughts by commenting on our discussion. Or, if you want to e-mail your thoughts, ideas or questions about comments to PilotOnline.com producers, send an e-mail to moderator@pilotonline.com

Thanks for reading and commenting!

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

How much should comments be regulated or moderated?

As commenter “town hall” continued, Olivia Hubert-Allen, producer for HamptonRoads.com, explained how different newspapers moderate comments online:

Some news sites allow near freedom for people to post anything they want. Others moderate comments like The Pilot does. On the other end, The New York Times has a full-time staff of four people to moderate comments, and they check every single comment before it goes on the site.

One story Olivia showed from another newspaper had obscenities in it. A commenter here said no one wants that.

He says PilotOnline.com is “reasonably civil for the most part.”

He said commenters should try to help maintain civility.

“I think the level of civility that you’ve got is pretty good, and you don’t want to temper that too much.”

Jane Elizabeth, online news director at The Pilot, said the newspaper’s goal is to get a broader group of people commenting.

“We don’t want all the same people talking about the same thing,” she said.

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Why aren't comments allowed on some stories?

A commenter wants to know why people are not able to comment on certain stories.

According to Mark Edelen, director of online production:

The Associated Press stories on PilotOnline.com are hosted on the AP’s site, so comments are not allowed on those.

On certain national stories, such as Barack Obama making his health care speech, The Pilot will post the story because producers know people want to talk about it.

Comments are generally allowed on every story, but we turn comments off on what’s termed “routine crime stories” and stories about auto accidents.

“That’s because all too often the people who tend to want to comment want to convict and execute the person right there, before they’ve even had a court appearance, and that’s not fair,” Mark says.

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Polls on PilotOnline.com, more talk on aggressive comments

Commenters at tonight's meeting say they would like to be able to suggest their own poll questions or even create their own polls. Several commenters say Pilot polls aren’t all that great. And some of the polls ask good questions, but leave out valid answers as choices, they said.

Here's another idea from a commenter: Create a "kiddie pool" for commenters who are new to the online world and would be turned off by "the big boys" -- the people who post hard-hitting comments all day long. Another commenter who said she prefers the print edition of the paper said the aggressive commenters are monopolizing the discussion and turning people off.

But a regular commenter responded that he feels so passionate about the things he writes about - such as the Michael Vick dogfighting charges - that he wants to express his opinion, and doesn't mind someone who disagrees writing back.

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

bLetters: A popular feature online that draws many comments

Editorial page editor Don Luzzatto is explaining what bLetters are. They’re basically the letters to the editor published online, and they’re very popular online, he says.

Don has a concern about them, though. The letter writers are identified by their name and the city in which they live. The commenters are anonymous. To Don, that seems unfair. Here's a link to a column Don wrote about the issue earlier this year.

If you’ve read bletters, you’ll know that the comments can be very aggressive toward the writer.

If The Pilot wanted to publish some of the online comments on bletters in the paper, would it be fair to ask the commenter for his or her name?

The bLetter discussion is leading to more talk about a topic that came up earlier – whether online commenters should be required to post under their real names.

If you publish under your own name, co-workers may harass you, one commenter said. Another one said he knows of a local police officer who sometimes critiques his department – something that can’t be done without anonymity.

One commenter says: “When you have anonymity, you can have a little bit of cushion. You can say, I don’t agree with blah blah blah.”

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Tone of comments: Sometimes nice, often not

Many of the commenters at our meeting tonight are avid posters. But one man says he doesn’t comment all that much because he’s turned off by what he sees in the comments.

“It seems like some people, that’s all they do,” he said, referring to aggressive comments on the newspaper's Web sites. “I wonder if there’s a limit to how many posts you’re allowed to make.”

He said he knows that’s not in line with free speech.

Deb Markham of HamptonRoads.com just pointed out a feature on the Web sites. You can hide comments from someone you don’t like, or from someone whose comments you disagree with. You’ll then be looking at the comments that user’s comments won’t be visible to you.

What do you think of the general tone of the comments you see on PilotOnline.com?

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.

Some PilotOnline.com users are in the 'penalty box'

Not every user at PilotOnline.com and HamptonRoads.com gets to automatically post comments. Users who have posted a string of comments that violate rules will go on “moderation.” That means every comment they post must be read and approved by a staffer before it appears online. That sometimes takes minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes a day.

You could call this the “penalty box.”

If someone has a track record of comments that go too far, they may be kicked out of the site, says Deb Markham, HamptonRoads.com producer. But that is rare, she said.

-Patrick Wilson

ADVISORY: Users are solely responsible for opinions they post here and for following agreed-upon rules of civility. Comments do not reflect the views of The Virginian-Pilot or its Web sites. Comments are automatically checked for inappropriate language, but readers might find some comments offensive or inaccurate. If you believe a comment violates our rules, click the "Report Violation" link below the comment.