(This is a more complete article from Doug Cumming than was run on the pages of Valley Business FRONT in the February issue.)Washington & Lee University journalism professor Doug Cumming, a former journalist and magazine publisher, was asked to grade the most prominent of the region’s periodicals.
He did not judge them against each other, but on their own niches. He was not asked to judge the region’s largest publication, The Roanoke Times, concentrating instead on the alternatives. Here’s his report, which differs from the printed version in that it has more criticism for each publication.
City magazine Grade: C+
This full-color, un-slick monthly bills itself as the region’s premiere arts and leisure guide, but lacks anything like actual coverage of arts and leisure. Vague puff-pieces snuggle next to ads about the same event. Local personalities are allowed to smile in text and pictures, but we get no good storytelling or background. Some articles have familiar by-lines – Joe Kennedy of the Roanoke Times’ “Cuppa Joe” fame and Gene Marrano of WVTF’s “Studio Virginia” – but it’s never clear what any of the articles are about. A focused headline or a pull-quote might help. An extra copy-editor would help too. The table of contents I saw listed “Brest Cancer Awareness” and the “flavours” listing of restaurants started with an index box referring to pages 92 through 100 when the magazine had only 84 pages (and the index box was on page 71). If you like the ads and the listings, it’s worth the price: Complimentary.
Blue Ridge Country Grade: A
Thick and slick, this 20-year-old subscription-only magazine is conservative in the best sense. The layout, photographs, editing, sense-of-itself: everything seems restrained, tradition-loving and, well, almost dull until you spend some easy time with it. Unlike Southern Living, this bimonthly claims a lifestyle niche that is so geographically specific and alive, “conservative” comes to mean quietly progressive – in the Scots-Irish tradition of defending the beauty of the Southern mountains (nine states are included) and the individualists she breeds. (On the other hand, all those log-home ads whisper a wee contradiction.) The editors, writers, and photographers obviously love this ancient geological saddle ridge of the American South, and love this magazine like blood kin.
Bella: the regional magazine for women Grade: B+
“B” is for beautiful, or the Italian bella, and the plus is for having so many fine writers fill this highly formatted, colorful tabloid. But it falls off my “A” list because it makes little effort to go beyond its formula of writing-workshop women breezily talking to the “bella girl” reader about their lives, feelings, relationships – almost anything except southwest Virginia (with the exception of “lunch date,” a restaurant-sponsored Q&A with “some of the area’s most public women”). Well, the formula works for a similar freebie called Skirt!, so this monthly might as well offer the package to lovely local advertisers. But can’t it use those upscale ad dollars to do a little more reporting on life in the Valley?
16 Blocks: Blacksburg Arts & Culture Grade: A –
The name both limits and raises my expectations, marking this tabloid’s territory as the hip four-by-four blocks at the center of Blacksburg. As a monthly alternative paper on the thin side, 16 Blocks rocks. It mixes short articles on local oddities with columns such as an “Ethos” feature (anti-anti-abortion in the one I read) and an ironic political “rant.” And it keeps its editorial content separate from its ads, each on their own pages. But it’s upfront about who pays the piper and makes this little paper free. It runs a full-page map with locations of each advertiser, going well beyond its 16 blocks. “We could not exist without them,” they say, which is more honest than slipping favors into editorial content.
New River Valley Magazine Grade: A-
An upscale bimonthly lifestyle magazine for the region can’t be criticized for being pretty, practical, local, easy on the eyes, and clean in the hands. Indeed, some may find New River Valley Magazine attractive. The problem is that a good magazine needs a personality, and this means something distinctive in the front and back of the book. Other than a soft-spoken Letter from the Editor on page 9 and a spotty “Upcoming Events” on pages 60-61 (in a random issue), no distinctive columns or calendars give this publication character. The design is minimalist. There are no unifying design elements, end-sign dingbats, or even “2008”s where the folio date appears on each page. Every article is packaged on one or two pages. Decent articles and ads, for the most part, are all you get.
Blue Ridge Business Journal Grade: B
Local business tabloids have become indispensible, and Blue Ridge Business Journal has filled that niche for twenty years for Roanoke and environs. Its Business Digest briefs, People thumbnails, and On the Record courthouse squibs still give it the look of the business fortnightly of the region. But this is awfully pale tea. It you want to see what a good metro business journal should look like, see the thick weeklies that bigger cities like Atlanta and Charlotte enjoy, and in competition, not bed, with their local daily paper.
Valley Business FRONT Grade: A-
What’s this? It is, you’ll notice, curiously small. But so is payment for this assignment, which, I swear, has no influence whatsoever on this grade. After twenty years of editing Blue Ridge Business Journal, Dan Smith seems to have a lot of contacts with local entrepreneurs and writers, a lot of energy, and a pro-business zeal that animates this new monthly thing he edits. The witty, color-coded organization, once you de-code it, makes for a good read or good riffling (if you just want to read the “Executive Summary” atop each story). The gung-ho slant for business and sixteen “diverse business professionals” comprising an editorial advisory board worry me a bit. But if Smith’s modest demurrer – “We’re journalists” – is also taken to authorize an independent watchdog role, then the advice and consent from business can only help.
The Roanoker: Metropolitan Roanoke Lifestyle Grade: B+
In the 1960s, Harold Hayes at Esquire and Clay Felker at New York inspired city magazines to be local versions of that magazine revolution: impious, snobby, graphically wild, creatively written, and lifestyle-useful. The Roanoker is a good city magazine journalistically, but fails to show any signs of having been inspired by that revolution – much less updating or localizing it. It does borrow Esquires “Dubious Achievement” award – renamed “The Train Wreck Awards” this year – but the magazine feels like something out of the ‘50s. At least it hasn’t let glitzy advertizing muck up the journalism.
The Roanoke Star-Sentinel Grade: D
For decades, the Roanoke Times and World News were among the most conservative papers in Virginia. But today, perhaps the Roanoke Times does occasionally demean conservatives. . . by running letters and guest editorials expressing downright daffy right-wing theology. But trying to counter a relatively liberal opinion page of Roanoke’s pretty darn good surviving newspaper with this weekly ragamuffin of wasted pulpwood makes no sense. It actually puts conservatism in a bad light, but not because of any extremism in this flimsy sheet. This is simply bad community journalism – random news judgment, dull guest columns, blurry and poorly framed photos and graphics. And this is an alternative to the Roanoke Times?
Play by Play Grade: A-
A regional monthly on sports – now there’s a niche I wouldn’t have thought of. Sports Illustrated proved that a magazine can appeal to fans of various sports only with high quality writing and pictures. Daily and weekly papers take care of the games and scores. Play by Play can’t compete with that, or match national sports mags in appearance – the truth is, it looks pretty shabby except on a few four-color pages. But the long articles connect, telling interesting sports stories loaded with history and people (their names always in boldface type for grazers).
The Roanoke Tribune Grade: B
It may not look like much, but the Tribune deserves respect as an authentic survivor of an embattled form of community journalism, the African-American press. Sure, it runs feel-good AP wire on page one, and doesn’t follow AP Style in its copy. And its news judgment seems odd. But its journalism comes out of a history of segregation. Good black weeklies like this (founded 1939) were advocates of equality and recognition, not “objectivity,” while giving black social life and religious faith the respect they never got in the mainstream (white) press. The Tribune still serves its community. Compare the anti-liberal Star-Sentinel, which runs an eye-center ad at the bottom of page one. The Tribune runs in the same space this bit of advocacy: “Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Obama could run. Obama ran so our children can fly.”
Salem Times-Register, Cave Spring Connection, Vinton Messenger, New Castle Record, Radford News Journal, News Messenger (Christianburg ) and Fincastle Herald & Botetourt County News. Grade: D +
I’m sorry if this grade fails to recognize that one or two or these weeklies seem a bit better than a D+, like maybe the ones in Salem and Fincastle, which claim histories going back to 1854 and 1866 respectively. But they all seem under the same dreary spell of an owner, Main Street Newspapers, determined to see how little money it takes to put out a community paper and bring in piddling ad revenue. The same by-line might appear on every front-page story, and under all the photos. Ads litter the front pages. Their idea of community news is a church bulletin, and even these might require a correction. This third-rate journalism is particularly dismaying in a time when hyper-local is supposed to be the salvation of the news business. I read in the current issue of Quill magazine that feisty, independent startups are finding success in the boondocks. Watch out, Main Street Newspapers.
Smith Mountain Laker.Com Grade: B
A good publication can help build a community. A ritzy community, conversely, can underwrite a pretty nice-looking magazine like Smith Mountain Laker.Com thanks to real estate ads. But it only goes to show what advertising money can do. Real estate-sponsored journalism has never been about real community, nor was it ever in danger of foreseeing the collapse of the real estate market. As Sinclair Lewis once wrote, it’s hard to get someone to understand something when their job depends on not understanding it.
Roanoke Valley Home Grade: A
This glossy upscale shelter magazine debuts at a thin 52 pages, with a cover story on the art of table napkin presentation for the civilized Southern home. This may not be your cup of tea. It’s not mine. But such as it is, like a tasteful table setting, it comes close to a flawless little home and garden quarterly. Now let me get on to something I enjoy reading.
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