The Virginian-Pilot

The June 6, 2007 front page of The Virginian-Pilot
Type	Daily newspaper
Format	Broadsheet
Owner	Landmark Media Enterprises
Publisher	Maurice Jones
Editor	Denis Finley
Founded	1868
Headquarters	150 West Brambleton Avenue Norfolk, Virginia 23510  United States
Circulation	156,968 Daily[1]
ISSN	0889-6127
Official website	PilotOnline.com

The Virginian-Pilot (commonly called "The Pilot") is a daily newspaper based in Norfolk, Virginia, and serving the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, southeastern Virginia, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and northeastern North Carolina. The flagship property of Landmark Media Enterprises, The Pilot is Virginia's largest daily metro paper.^[1] It is sometimes erroneously called The VIRGINIA Pilot.

History

The Virginian-Pilot and its sister afternoon edition, the Ledger-Star (which ceased publication in 1995) were created by Samuel L. Slover as the result of several mergers of papers dating back to 1868. Slover's nephew Frank Batten Sr. became publisher at age 27 in 1954. He expanded the Virginian-Pilot's parent company, which soon evolved into Landmark Communications and later Landmark Media Enterprises, by acquiring other newspapers and radio stations and by creating The Weather Channel, now owned by NBC Universal.

In the 1920s, editor Louis Jaffe received the Virginian-Pilot's first Pulitzer Prize. Jaffe mentored the paper's next editor, Lenoir Chambers, who in 1960 received the paper's second Pulitzer for his editorials on desegregation.

Frank Batten Jr. became publisher in 1991 and began digitalizing the paper. In 1993 The Virginian-Pilot was one of the first newspapers in the country to launch a sister website, Pilotonline.com.^{[citation needed]} Batten Jr. stepped down as the paper's publisher, becoming Landmark Communications' Chairman and CEO. "Dee" Carpenter became publisher in 1995, followed by Bruce Bradley in 2005, and Maurice Jones in 2008.

For a long time, The Virginian-Pilot's motto was "True to the Democratic Party in victory or defeat".^[2]

Offices and corporate

The paper's offices remains in their original downtown Norfolk headquarters on Brambleton Avenue, where it has been based since the 1940s. The paper operates satellite offices in Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake, and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in Nags Head. The paper's printing facility, once located also in the downtown Norfolk headquarters, is in Virginia Beach.

The Virginian-Pilot is a division of Pilot Media Companies, which includes Pilotonline.com/Hamptonroads.com, Pilot Direct printing, LNC (Local News on Cable)/Pilot13 News, Hamptonroads.tv, Inside Business, Link, The Flagship, Military Newspapers of Virginia, and other supplemental print and web businesses.

A January 3, 2008, report suggests a possible sale of The Virginian-Pilot's parent company, Landmark Communications. After much debate, The Virginian-Pilot was taken off of the selling block. The company will not go back on sale for another few years.^[3]

Prices

The Pilot prices are: $0.75 Daily, $2.00 Sunday.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Virginia Newspapers". MondoNewspapers. Mondo Code. http://www.mondonewspapers.com/usa/circulation/virginia.html. Retrieved 11 March 2011. 
2. ^ http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2006/04/virginian-pilot-true-to-democratic.html
3. ^ "Battens may sell The Roanoke Times' parent company". The Roanoke Times. 2008-01-03. http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/145644. Retrieved 2008-01-03. 

External links

• The Virginian-Pilot(mobile)
• Landmark Publishing summary
• Landmark Communications History