I didn’t realize we were publishing this today, or I would have blogged it earlier.
The Virginian-Pilot’s Phil Walzer reports:
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, who has sharply criticized The Virginian-Pilot in the past, is considering making a bid to buy the newspaper, an associate said Thursday.
Landmark Communications Inc., a Norfolk-based media company, announced last week that it was evaluating whether to sell all of its assets, including The Weather Channel and The Pilot.
“Although the price for The Weather Channel is a little rich for my blood, I am considering a potential bid for the Pilot and have asked my attorneys to look into it,” Robertson said in an e-mail forwarded by his personal assistant, G.G. Conklin. “It would be particularly helpful to provide internships for Regent University journalism students.”
In a subsequent e-mail, Conklin confirmed his interest. Robertson, she said, “has no further comments to offer at this time.”
I guess Robertson could afford to buy us. I hear prophets are up in heaven this year.
Classes in video journalism
That sounds like a dangerous proposition for a lot of reasons. If the guy doesn’t like the Pilot, what’s to stop him from coming in and basically wrecking everything you guys have done in the last 10 years by rearranging everything the way he sees fit?
Giving internships to the local J-school students is all well and good but when does that become a form of discrimination against other interns?
Similarly, we had an editor try to come in to “fix” the paper who also didn’t know anything about journalism and had he been hired we would’ve taken 10 steps backwards and most of the crew would’ve quit. Not saying that will happen here, but it sounds possible.
Good luck with all that