THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702160214
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: THE NEW PILOT
SOURCE: Kay Tucker Addis, editor
Dennis Hartig, managing editor
LENGTH: 71 lines
The Virginian-Pilot you're reading will be noticeably different tomorrow.
For the past three days, we've described improvements we'll make, based on feedback you've given us over the past three years.
Our goal is to create a newspaper that serves the unique needs and interests of the people of Hampton Roads, a paper that sees and understands the world as you do. We're editing and organizing the paper to make it worth your time, whether you have five minutes or 50 to read The Pilot.
In more than 2,000 interviews and face-to-face meetings over the past three years, we asked you how to make The Pilot more useful. Based on what you told us, we're making more than 75 changes in content, primarily to the weekday papers.
These are the biggest changes in The Pilot in many years. They will be rolled out in two phases. The rollout ends on Monday, March 3, with the launch of a stronger section for local news, called Hampton Roads, and a livelier Sports report containing new columns and features.
The changes begin tomorrow with improvements to make events beyond Hampton Roads easier for you to understand and use. Follow the changes this week in the A section, The Daily Break and Business.
In the A section, you'll find an easy-to-use daily news summary, more national and international news, and on the new Focus page, in-depth treatment of a major story.
All week inside The Daily Break, you'll see that we're giving special attention to the things that you told us matter most in your personal life - your family, your health, religion and free time. Five days a week, you'll find practical advice on personal health. Every day, the new Best Bets column will give you tips on the latest movies, books, videos, live music and stage shows.
Tomorrow also marks the debut of Your Business, a special Monday business section that replaces our Business Weekly tabloid.
In December, we invited groups of readers to sample the changes in the paper and tell us what they thought. This is how one reader described Your Business:
``It's about your money, how it is going to affect your daily life . . . and how it impacts your city, your neighborhood, your job, everything.''
We've continued this practical approach throughout the rest of our business news report. We're adding more information and making it more meaningful and more readable. Take a look at the stock listings, for example. The typeface is cleaner and larger. We're more than doubling our listings of NASDAQ stocks. And we'll be listing about 95 percent of all mutual funds on the market. If you follow your mutual fund for a week in our listings, you can track its performance over the past week, the past quarter, year-to-date, the past 52 weeks and the past three years. We're adding a Wall Street roundup and a market diary. Five days a week we'll provide reports, practical advice for managing your money, and a local column about businesses and business people on the move.
In hundreds of conversations, you've told us what matters in your life and in your community. You've suggested how The Pilot can be more practical and helpful. Over the next three weeks, you'll see how we've listened, and how we've changed your Pilot.
Let us know what you think. Each morning this week, starting tomorrow, a dozen people from The Pilot will be waiting by the phone to hear your comments about the changes. Call us at 624-1559. Or call INFOLINE at 640-5555 and press NEWS (6397). You also can send a fax to 446-2414 or an e-mail message to pilot(AT)infi.net.
Let's keep talking to each other. ILLUSTRATION: NEW
Look for these buttons that will signal new features in The Pilot.