Times Columnist Dan Casey speaks to a group of Roanoke Writers recently.

 The Ups and Downs of The Roanoke Times

The Roanoke Times, our region's only remaining daily newspaper, has its good days and its bad days, often leaning heavily toward the latter. Today, it had both, mostly because there was too much news to cover with too little staff, especially in sports. But it gave a gallant effort.

Let's begin with the laudable. Dan Casey's Page 1 column (which always fits nicely here) was about a Hollins Baptist Church long-time member who was denied burial in the church cemetery. Dan told us the church finally relented. Jeff Sturgeon's cover story was about LewisGale Medical Center getting in trouble with federal regulators over its treatment of a dead body. Both good stories, hidden from us, dug up by superb reporters. Let me add that Sturgeon also had a newsy business column with items nobody else had.

Mark Berman, a sportswriter whose work ethic could never be questioned, had an excellent--day late because of deadlines--story on Virginia Tech's women's basketball team's loss to Caitlin Clark of Iowa (Tech beat Iowa, but lost to Clark, which a lot of teams will do). He also had a story on the state cross country championships at Green Hill Park in Salem. The latter is puzzling because cross country is a minor sport and high school football was in full swing over the weekend with only Patrick Henry's upset loss to William Fleming (Roanoke's two city schools) being covered. Weekends like this are why papers have stringers, and you can get them cheap or free.

Not reported in The Times by either Times staffers or sister papers in nearby Charlottesville and Lynchburg were games played by unbeaten Division I college teams James Madison and Liberty, both of which are undefeated. JMU, because it is new to D1, is not eligible for a bowl, which is causing quite a ruckus in some quarters (including ESPN, which will be host for its Gameday in Harrisonburg Saturday).

Notably, The Times did, indeed, cover the HBCU's Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association playoff game at Salem Stadium, which drew a sizeable crowd. 

I was taken aback with The Times' Book Page, which used to be farmed out locally to good freelance editors. It is nice that it exists; it is sad that it was written in Minneapolis and contained not a single review--not one--of any of the many good books by authors who live in this region, especially Roland Lazenby's "Magic," which was just released and is superb. It will be a national bestseller. 

Also not covered by a local reporter were high school playoff football games involving Lord Botetourt, William Byrd, Christiansburg, Alleghany, Radford, Glenvar and Salem, among others. All had brief mentions, but not full coverage. The Times did have a by-lined story on Jefferson Forest, which is just outside Lynchburg and not in The Times' circulation area. The coverage was from the Lynchburg paper. It did not cover North Cross, a Roanoke County private school which won the state championship.

And finally, The Times, regardless of whatever else it does or doesn't, manages to get a smiling photo of Gov. Glen Youngkin, even though this week he has little to smile about, since he was repudiated roundly in Tuesday's elections.

Let me say emphatically that I understand the problems at our daily paper and I appreciate their laudable efforts to overcome them with often-herculean efforts. The news did get covered; the sports did get covered; the weather always gets over-covered, but Sunday papers like today's tell us in emphatic terms where we are with news coverage and remind us of where we were. And one little side note: The online publications that get so much attention these days--Cardinal News and the Roanoke Rambler--don't have weekend editions and even if they did, they wouldn't be covering the games, the book reviews, or much of the timely news covered in the daily paper.