Here's another example of the local daily getting better since its sale to Warren Buffett's group and the elimination of its former publisher. This story out of Charlottesville is written by a Daily Progress reporter, who is on the scene. The DP is part of the Berkshire Hathaway group that now has most of the larger dailies in Virginia.
The group is sharing stories, giving every one of the members better statewide coverage.
This story is an in-depth look at reaction of ABC's arrest of some apparently innocent UVa co-eds, who were leaving the grocery store with sparkling water and not beer as the agents suspected. A large group of them descended on the students, scared the hell out of them and created a crime where one didn't exist. It's a local story with statewide implications that the local daily here would likely have ripped from the wires and run in a paragraph or two in months and years past. Now, we get the story.
Imagine how good--and how local--the coverage of UVa's presidential ouster a year ago would have been had this merger, and firing of the former publisher, been in effect.
Now, if we can get that dang executive editor a new job in a distant state, we'll have our paper back.
While the expanded state coverage is nice, there needs to be more picked up from the Times-Dispatch -- anything dealing with the state budget and state employees. The folks in Roanoke quite often overlook the fact that the Roanoke and New River valleys have the largest concentration of state employees outside of Richmond. But since real news hasn't been important to the Roanoke crowd for years, things like pay freezes, sticking employees with their retirement bill (after the General Assembly didn't hold up its end of the bargain), and changes in the health insurance plans don't get covered.
ReplyDeleteIt would also be nice if the RT decided what its priorities are. A bad car wreck in Blacksburg gets no mention, but a fender-bender in Roanoke gets a photo and two days of stories. Roanoke City Council is covered like a blanket, even for minor things, but meetings in Blacksburg about major changes to the town (like large student housing projects) go without anyone from the RT even showing up.
I wonder if any of the sister papers are picking up anything from this area to run in their editions? Or is the news coverage here so sorry that there pickings are pretty slim?