That's Dwayne Yancey (center, looking unusually dapper), Roland Lazenby (right), and me (in the MAGA tie and commie shirt) at the Perry F. Kendig Awards. I think each of us has won at least one Kendig, which celebrates the arts.

The Decline and Fall of the Local Editorial

Dwayne Yancey's commentary (editorial?) in this morning's Cardinal News looks at the disappearance of editorials from local news outlets in the recent past, and he mentions the lack of a top award for those editorials during the recent press association meetings. Dwayne has won two of Lathan Mims awards in the past and his editorials for Cardinal certainly should have received consideration this time around, but Cardinal's was the only entry in the category. (Link: bit.ly/3Oe6NG3)   

I'm thinking back to my days as editor of the Salem-Times Register when Publisher Ray Robinson dictated no more political or critical editorials would be run in his four newspapers (which included the New Castle Record, Vinton Messenger, and Fincastle Herald, all tiny papers, all of which I edited together and separately at one time or another). I was disappointed, but not surprised. Ray didn't like controversy, nor did he care for liberalism. I tended toward both.

Truth be told, Ray was following a national trend for weekly newspapers: no opinions about anything except maybe Mom and high school football (in Salem, especially). But the trend had not caught on with dailies (and neither had the trend toward front-page ads, but that has been remedied since).

When I was with FRONT magazine (as co-owner and founding editor), I was one of the very few (maybe the only) socialist business publication editors in captivity and I wrote opinions based on my philosophy. Letters to the editor often began, "Dear Stupid ...". My opinions were often countered by my business partner Tom Field, who is a libertarian and also wrote a column (and still does). It all seemed fair and balanced. And local.

Dwayne didn't mention the online and locally produced Roanoke Rambler, which covers Roanoke government extensively, and its reporting--even when it gives no opinion, which is almost all of the time--often spurs change, or at least more in-depth discussion of issues. It won six press association awards recently in its first effort, all based on solid, basic, hard news reporting. Cardinal won 21, but those online publications aren't really competitors in the strictest sense. 

Cardinal is supported by donations--the biggest ones from businesses--and the Rambler survives through subscriptions and donations. Cardinal, with a staff mostly comprised of former Roanoke Times journalists, especially at the top, covers a broad portion of the state (with much of its coverage ranging far from Roanoke in both physical distance and relevance); Rambler sticks to the Roanoke Valley with its much smaller staff and resources.

Dwayne did write that Cardinal and the Rambler are part of a group of online-only publications that comprise a larger grouping than the one that includes The Times. That is true and my guess is that the online publications category will continue to grow, while the newsprint pubs continue to shrink. Fact is, the newspapers are much larger (in every sense) than the online pubs and, of course, much more expensive to support (with advertising). And, of course, readers' attention is increasingly moving to the computer screen and away from the large, harder-to-handle newsprint version.

Dwayne also didn't allude to Public Radio in Roanoke, which is a substantial presence in news gathering nationally (and has the awards to prove it) and the strongest source of local news--but not editorials--on the radio in its broad coverage area. That area is essentially the same one Cardinal wants to serve. In the past WVTF published essays, and often they amounted to editorials. I won two Virginia Broadcasters Association awards for these essays/editorials before WVTF stopped submitting my free work. (No, I don't know why. It was never explained to me.) They were a breath of fresh air for a radio station that wasn't owned by right-wing media, but the essays are no more. I don't know if things got too hot to allow them, or if the station just got bored with them.

The landscape, though, has definitely changed. If you want an opinion, form your own (and, we'll hope you base it on good information, which is still available from several sources, online and in print) or let Dwayne give you one. You can depend on him having researched the topic fully.