Top editors from the three newspapers who most often cover Lake of the Woods participated in a panel discussion at the club’s Feb. 16 meeting, telling an audience of about 60 members and visitors that political bias is not a factor in their editorial decisions but that the economic condition of the industry often is.
Dick Hammerstrom, local news editor of The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg; Jeff Say, community editor of The Star-Exponent in Culpeper; and Jeff Poole, managing editor of the Orange County Review, participated in an informative discussion of the issues facing their industry and answered questions from the audience.
The three editors said the flagging profitability of newspapers has greatly reduced the size of news staffs and made the news-gathering process more difficult than ever. Mr. Say and Mr. Poole, whose papers are both owned by Richmond-based Media General Corp., said the content of their news columns are edited at a central copy desk in Lynchburg in order to keep costs low. The result of this, they said, is news coverage that is less locally oriented and less likely to reflect the needs of local readers.
Each of the editors said that changes to the media landscape brought on by the Internet and other factors have resulted in newsroom budgets being slashed and editors being asked to do more with less.
Not waiting for a member of the audience to bring it up, Mr. Hammerstrom addressed an error that appeared recently in the Free Lance-Star regarding the estimated cost of improvements to the LOW Clubhouse bar. Despite journalists’ best efforts to keep such errors from occurring, he said, “We are human, and we do make mistakes.”
Each of the editors encouraged residents of Lake of the Woods to keep them informed of newsworthy events in the community.