Pilot v Press: 9 days out

I subscribe to The Virginian Pilot and read The Daily Press online. I’m no fan of the recently redesigned Press website – poorly organized, opinions are intermixed with LTEs – but I still visit daily. They tend to post new stories – even those from the Southside – before PilotOnline gets them. PilotOnline, on the other hand, is fairly well designed but its content is, well, lacking. Case in point: coverage of local races.

First of all, the Press has its Voter Guide listed prominently on the front page. PilotOnline – nada. The Press has been building up its Voter Guide, with a search function to find the races applicable to you, the ability to look at all the races, compare the candidates, even print your own sample ballot. Candidate profiles are complete and their answers to a number of questions are available.

I’m really not sure how one would locate the elections “channel” on PilotOnline if you didn’t already know it existed. It should be listed under News, as its address indicates, but it isn’t. I had actually forgotten this channel existed until I saw an Ad Watch in Saturday’s paper and the address was printed there. You can find it here, although the ad watch I was looking for hasn’t been posted. As you can see, the information is pretty sparse and the Q&As as well as videos of the candidate interviews are listed as “coming soon.” How soon is that? With only 9 days til Election Day, don’t you think these should be on the site by now? Oh, and don’t think the links listed are complete. Not only was the ad watch from Saturday’s paper not up there, but where are the endorsements?

The Pilot needs to step up its game. Heck, they have 8 races to cover, while the Press is covering significantly more, including local races in six counties!