Category: Media
-
Bacon Bits: In with the New, Out with the Old
In with the new… Data Center Alley too hot to handle. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) has sold 424 acres west of Dulles International Airport to data-center developer Digital Realty Trust for an eye-popping $236.5 million — $558,000 per acre. MWAA will place $207 million in a segregated account used to reduce costs that…
-
Bacon Bits, Your Tasty Morning Info Treat
More hidden deficit spending. Virginia devoted 33% less to capital spending on K-12 schools (inflation-adjusted) in 2016 than in 2008, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That compared to a 26% reduction nationally. The cuts, say CBPP, “mean less money to build new schools, renovate and expand facilities, and equip schools…
-
Media reaction to Goodlatte’s 2018 Chesapeake Bay Amendment
Background: Republican Rep Bob Goodlatte (Va – 6th) has proposed an amendment to an appropriations package which would forbid the EPA from using federal funds to take action against bay states that fail to meet pollution-reduction targets set by the EPA and agreed-to by the states. The amendment is to the 2019 Interior, Environment, Financial…
-
VaNews, the New Power Broker in the Virginia Media Landscape
When David Poole launched the Virginia Public Access Project’s VaNews digest of news articles about Virginia politics and policy, he had no way of imagining that things would get so complicated. As other news aggregators do, VaNews rounded up the top stories from Virginia’s newspapers, television stations, and selected online publications, excerpting headlines and lead…
-
Dealing with Sickos in a Free Society
The massacre of five journalists in Annapolis, Md., two days ago was a tragedy — one that I, who worked many years in newsrooms like that of the Capital Gazette, can relate to personally. Sadly, it did not take long for the finger pointing to begin. A predictable first target was President Donald Trump, who…
-
The WaPo Paywall Finally Did Me In
Well, I did it. I signed up for an online subscription to the Washington Post. I held out as long as I could, but I finally concluded that I can’t do an adequate job blogging about statewide public policy without having access to the Post‘s local and regional reporting — the most recent case in…
-
Nonprofit Journalism Comes to Virginia
As Virginia print journalism continues to decline, a new business model has emerged — an Internet-based model supported by non-profit foundations. The Virginia Mercury, an online publication, will report state government and policy news coming out of the General Assembly on topics such as healthcare, campaign finance and criminal justice. Funding will come from Washington, D.C.-based…
-
Virginia’s Battered News Industry Takes Another Hit
After a century-and-a-half of independent ownership, Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot severed its last connection with the Batten family, which had run the newspaper since 1955, with the sale to the Chicago-based Tronc Inc. media chain. Style Weekly, Richmond’s weekly alternative to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, was included in the $34 million deal. Tronc touts its ability as one of…
-
Warren Buffett Writes Off His Own Newspapers
Uh, oh, this has got to make a lot of Virginia journalists nervous: Warren Buffett, whose BH Media Group owns daily newspapers in Richmond, Roanoke, Charlottesville, Lynchburg and Danville, among other media properties, has reiterated his conviction that there is no long-term future for most newspapers. “It is very difficult to see — with a…
-
Politics, Culture Wars, and Facebook Data
Thanks to the zealous inquiries of Attorney General Mark Herring, we have learned that 7,100 Virginians downloaded a third-party app that yielded some 1.7 million of their Virginia Facebook friends to a contractor working for data harvesting firm, Cambridge Analytica, which had been hired by the Trump campaign. “While we continue to await a fuller…
-
Sign of the Times…
The Herald-Progress and the Caroline Progress, community weeklies serving Hanover and Caroline counties, are going out of business. The final editions will be distributed today. The Herald-Progress has been publishing for 140 years, the Caroline Progress for nearly 100 years. The two weeklies were staffed by six full-time employees. The newspapers were no longer commercially…
-
More Cuts to the Virginian-Pilot
The newspaper meltdown proceeds apace in Virginia. Pilot Media, which owns the Virginian-Pilot and other print and online publications, is implementing employee buyouts and other cuts that will result in a reduction of “less than 10 percent” of the company’s 543-person workforce. So reports the Virginian-Pilot. Publisher Pat Richardson said the Norfolk-based company remains profitable,…
-
Tired of Fake News? It Will Get Worse.
Tired of fake news? Too bad, you’d better get used to it. The number of newspaper jobs in the United States continues to plummet with no sign of leveling off. Old media is in free-fall, and new media shows little sign of stepping in to fill the void created by its destruction. As many problems…
-
The Terrifying Power of the Media to Shape Opinion
Only 18% of Americans support the U.S. Senate healthcare bill to replace Obamacare, says one poll. Only 12%, says another, and only 8% says yet another. Given the slow-motion collapse of Obamacare, that’s remarkably low. With numbers that low, even a majority of Republicans must oppose the bill. Could the public’s negative opinion be shaped…
-
Why We Should Worry about a Shrinking Times-Dispatch
The Richmond Times-Dispatch has announced the consolidation of its print news pages and the layoff of another 33 employers, including 13 in the newsroom. The downsizing, which was part of a broader NH Media Group restructuring, came in response to the continuing shift of readers and advertisers to digital media. “While more readers than ever turn to…