THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507140025
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Lynn Feigenbaum
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
It was with some sadness, but little surprise, that I've watched over the years as the afternoon Ledger-Star began its slow fadeout . . . and then read the official announcement that the afternoon paper would cease publication Aug. 25.
I was hired by the Ledger 15 years ago, back in ``pre-merger'' days. This meant that, even though both the Pilot and the Ledger were owned by the same company, Landmark Communications, each still had its own staff.
I went to work on the rambunctious Daily Break, which competed with the Pilot's slicker Tidewater Living.
Today, the legacy of both those feature sections, in content and people, lives under the Daily Break banner, just as today's Virginian-Pilot represents a tradition and heritage that began 130 years ago with The Norfolk Virginian and continued with The Ledger-Dispatch, The Portsmouth Star, The Daily Pilot and other local newspapers of yore.
But if there's any surprise to The Ledger-Star's passing, it's only that it took so long to happen. It has clung to life long after many other evening newspapers were laid to rest. In fact, more than 500 p.m. papers have ceased publication in the past 35 years, according to the trade journal Editor & Publisher.
I believe it; I worked on several of them.
First there were my six years on The Miami News, a scrappy little newspaper that even in the '70s was under the shadow of that morning giant, The Miami Herald. The News folded in 1988, long after I had moved on.
My next afternoon paper was The Cape Cod Times, a daily in Hyannis, Mass. It's still alive and flourishing, but it's been a morning paper for at least a decade.
And from there I returned to Florida and the afternoon Fort Lauderdale News. Back then, the News shared space with its much smaller sister newspaper, the morning Sun-Sentinel. Today, there's a Sun-Sentinel but no Fort Lauderdale News. So it goes.
It's no coincidence that I sought out p.m. papers. As a working mom, the hours suited me: I began my editing day at 3 or 4 in the morning and was home in time to greet my children, rather sleepily, when they got home from school.
By that hour, in Miami, we had put out as many as four editions of the afternoon paper: an early street edition with huge banner headlines; a more subdued home-delivery version; the Blue Streak, a later street edition, and, finally, the ``pink sheet'' - a wraparound with the closing stocks and daily-double racing results. (Hey, this was Miami.)
Likewise, the Ledger-Star had separate home and street editions when I joined its news desk in '82 - lively headlines to grab the lunch-hour browser and a later edition to deliver to readers' homes.
We enjoyed the sense of competition with the bigger Pilot and generally felt (as editors tend to) that we on the Ledger did the best of all possible jobs and that everyone else was a distant runner-up.
That was then, this is now. The Pilot and Ledger staffs have long since merged and the two papers' content is now virtually identical. Truth is, in this day of round-the-clock headline news and online journalism, the multi-edition newspaper seems as outdated as anything in that old movie ``The Front Page.''
Sure, we'd all love to have separate papers with different viewpoints and competitive zeal. But the economics have changed and most people want their newspaper in the morning. I'm no bean counter, but clearly it doesn't pay to have it both ways, morning and afternoon.
That's why the Baltimore Evening Sun is going to fold in two months. And why the last Sunday p.m. paper, the Westerly (R.I) Sun, moved to mornings in April.
And that's why it's time to say farewell, a fond farewell, to The Ledger-Star. MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net
KEYWORDS: THE LEDGER-STAR by CNB