When I asked readers to sound off about cliches that ruffled their feathers (how’s that for a cliche?), I didn’t imagine anyone would go where Virginia Ferguson went.
The 85-year-old Virginia Beach resident wrote to say that she’s “irritated” because our reporters and columnists call the newspaper The Pilot “instead of its proud and proper name, The Virginian-Pilot.”
“It’s sort of tacky, as was referring to the president of the United States as Bill,” she said.
Odd, I thought. Why, practically everyone calls us The Pilot.
Much the same way folks say the Portsmouth Naval Hospital when, in fact, the facility’s official name is the Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth.
So I called Ferguson to see what gives. I discovered her “very special reason” for feeling as she does: Her grandfather, Michael Glennan, was variously the manager, editor and owner of the old Virginian newspaper, which merged with the Daily Pilot (commonly called the Pilot) in 1898 to form the Virginian and Pilot (renamed The Virginian-Pilot in February 1899).
“It’s my grandfather’s paper and it has simply been thrown out,” she moaned, referring to the “Virginian” part of the paper’s name.
Ferguson concedes that readers have traditionally called the newspaper The Pilot.
“Except the paper never did,” she declared. “Where’s (the newspaper’s) pride?”
Ferguson has also corresponded with Pilot editor Kay Tucker Addis on the matter. Addis wrote her a “very kind and sympathetic” response, she said.
But Ferguson “got the feeling nothing’s going to change. Nobody cares about this except me,” she said.
That’s not so.
If Ferguson keeps reading the paper and seeing our promotional material, she’ll discover she’s wrong.
Our motives are less personal than Ferguson’s — more about name recognition or “branding,” as marketing folks say.
Like Ferguson, Pilot leaders are proud of the newspaper’s name and reader recognition. And they want to preserve and tout the paper’s long, successful history by promoting the paper’s official name.
So, look to see The Virginian-Pilot used more in our promotional ads, in correspondence and in general. It has already started.
Which really pleases Addis:
“I am delighted that we’re now going to stress our full name, The Virginian-Pilot,” Addis said. “I don’t think we’re the kind of product or company that needs a nickname or something more hip or fresh. I always identify myself as being from The Virginian-Pilot; I sign my correspondence that way and I answer the phone that way.”
Beverley Mason, the paper’s promotions director and interim marketing director, championed use of The Virginian-Pilot as a “branding issue.”
“It’s confusing for the public to see us referring to ourselves as `The Pilot’ when our masthead reads `The Virginian-Pilot,’ ” especially to newer area residents, she said.
Mason said she has talked to individuals who have said: “I’m sending you this letter. Do I address it to The Pilot or The Virginian-Pilot?”
“People shouldn’t have to ask that,” Mason said.
She’s right.
The Virginian-Pilot is a three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning publication, much honored — locally, statewide and nationally — for its writing, photographs, graphics and design.
When I recruited under the Landmark Communications, Inc. banner at national job fairs, many young journalists and students would sometimes stare at the corporate name, vaguely curious.
“What’s Landmark?” they’d ask.
I’d start explaining, but it was usually when I mentioned The Virginian-Pilot — and The Weather Channel — that a light went on. I had their attention. They wanted to talk.
We want to capitalize on that, Mason said. “For branding purposes,” she added, “it is more efficient to promote ourselves using the same name on our masthead.”
Which doesn’t mean readers won’t hear “The Pilot” or see it written that way. It’s our nickname, what most area residents call us, much the same way many individuals refer to “The Post” or “The Times” when they’re talking about The Washington Post or The New York Times, respectively.
So The Pilot will continue to pop up in conversations and in print. Sometimes almost in the same breath with The Virginian-Pilot or in the same promotional ads. But the name, The Virginian-Pilot, will hold center stage.
So you see, Virginia Ferguson, we’re proud of our name, too. Our full name.
