By John-Henry Doucette

Last month, Veer Magazine ran in its news pages a story proclaiming that the Norfolk gift shop Texture “is unlike any other.” The article also included a quote that referred warmly to the shop’s “family of coworkers.” What the article failed to mention is that the writer is a member of that family.

The website AltDaily quickly picked up on the transgression: “(T)his is what we call in the journalism world a conflict of interest,” wrote AltDaily co-editor/publisher Jesse Scaccia in a long commentary that questioned Veer

publisher Jeff Maisey’s integrity. In the process, however, Scaccia also violated a fundamental rule of journalism: he failed to call Maisey for a comment. He has since acknowledged that he might have handled things differently.

“My thinking at the time was that I called and talked to the reporter directly and was satisfied with the answers I received,” Scaccia said, via email. “Also, this is not a voiceless private citizen we’re talking about; Jeff edits a publication with one of the biggest circulations in the region. Rather than quote him myself (with a call that would probably have felt like some sort of ambush), I thought I’d leave it to him. That said, yes, I probably should have called him.”

With some context, Veer’s misstep seems like an understandable error rather than a flagrant disregard of journalistic ethics. Maisey said the story was to have run with a “disclaimer” stating that the author was a part-time employee of Texture, but it was accidentally left off when the story went to press on deadline. A clarification ran in the Jan. 15 issue. It’s obvious to argue that an employee should not have been assigned the story, but disclosure up front would have made it go down easier.

Slippery slopes abound for those trying to do journalism these days. Scaccia and fellow publisher and editor Hannah Serrano are sharing their thoughts about it: “The fact is, whether we are transparent about it or not (and whether we are honest with ourselves or not), we at AltDaily are going to sometimes write fluff pieces about our advertisers. So we may as well be transparent about it, right?”

I like to think writers make their potential conflicts clear, as I’ll do shortly. There is no written ethics policy at TReehouse, although editor and publisher Tom Robotham says he evaluates every article in accordance with the standard guidelines of the profession.  Maisey told me he’d want a policy in place once Veer starts producing more news articles.

I admire Maisey, the AltDaily team (and Robotham, the “TR” of this site, for that matter) for their efforts to provide alternatives to The Virginian-Pilot. I want them to last, to hold each other accountable without tearing each other down. I hope the missteps I’ve described will lead to better outlets for creative thought, arts coverage and news – even fluff. And I hope they’ll consider their role in covering the community, and even media that cover the community – not just each other.

I’ve spoken with Veer and AltDaily about their plans, which gives the reader in me hope for the future of newsgathering in our region. I also asked about another player in news around here, with an ulterior motive that should become apparent. So – if editors are looking for a local business worth covering, I know just the one to wrap their mitts around.

Some disclosure: I’ve got conflicts. Scaccia and I are students in Old Dominion University’s creative writing program, though we recently met. I’m friendly with Maisey, a former colleague at Landmark Communications. I contribute to TReehouse and used to write for Port Folio Weekly during the Tom Robotham era. Robotham, editor and owner of this site, is a friend. Then there’s The Pilot. I was a reporter there until two years ago, and I have since served on a committee chaired by Pilot publisher Maurice Jones, though we don’t know each other well. The Pilot still lets me subscribe. I did not contact anyone there for comment.

The Pilot, like the alts, needs readers. It also needs support from competitors who rely upon work the newspaper delivers. Friending in the journalism world is called subscribing or advertising, but moral support won’t hurt. Without it, the picture window through which we view the public sphere will shrink to a peephole encrusted with the memorial ink of First Amendment sadness. Those outlets that I feel are positioned to best aid print news by covering it and championing what is best about it are three buds that have perked up in the wake of Port Folio’s demise – AltDaily, Veer and this site.

Port Folio was an “alternative weekly” published by Landmark. (Whether a paper published by a mainstream-media giant can function as a true alternative is debatable. But we’ll save that question for another time.) It was thought-provoking thanks to a small, dedicated staff. After Robotham was ousted, Maisey edited Port Folio until it was shuttered this past February. He was told it was losing money when he stepped in; it got worse with advertisers when The Pilot reported Port Folio might be shut down. A Website survives as the “voice of the 7 cities,” meaning a platform for content from surviving sister pubs; it’s like Johnny Cash’s cousin touring as the Man In Black.

Maisey, 47, talked to potential advertisers about what kind of publication they wanted to back and quickly launched Veer after he left Landmark. Effectively, they wanted a kinder, gentler Port Folio. “If you did an entertainment magazine that was monthly without the political tone … we will advertise and support you,” Maisey said, recalling the word he got. Also, Veer’s ad rates probably are more palatable than Port Folio’s or The Pilot’s quasi-replacement, Pulse, due to the difference in overhead.

Veer boasts a mix of community journalism, some general-interest news and a more significant level of arts coverage and a calendar. The December issue had some solid arts features. The January edition stepped up the news with an exit interview with former Gov. Tim Kaine and a story on the upcoming high-speed rail hearings. But this type of news presently is not the norm, Maisey said.

To see what Maisey’s pub does best, visit the arts section, starting with Maisey’s interview with Bob Weir on a Dead recording casual listeners might not know and a feature on The Pushers comedy outfit. Veer’s bread and butter is arts, culture, music and events.
“That’s what readers want and, more importantly, that’s what the advertisers wanted,” Maisey said. “No one told me they wanted a publication doing hard news. … Is there a need in this market for alternative hard news? Yeah. Is there a market?”

Tricky question.

“Our advertisers really want us to focus on arts and entertainment,” Maisey said.

Veer, though monthly, has broken a couple of stories, such as free admission at the Chrysler Museum and some high-speed rail news. Maisey can see a time when his pub pursues investigative pieces and undertakes a watchdog role. His plan – which includes introducing other publications into the market – is to increase the frequency of Veer’s publication in a sustainable way. Go from monthly to every two weeks, then weekly, and then maybe do some harder news.

“We could make any transition rather easily, but much depends on the economic environment in the region,” he wrote to me in an email. “Advertising budgets for arts organizations, retailers and restaurants are stagnant at best for 2010, and most are being reduced from last year.”

Hard and investigative news make more sense with greater frequency, he added. “Investigative reports are generally more expensive due to the amount of time and effort reporters need to produce such work. … Still, I believe such reporting is needed as a balance with what Pilot Media produces.”

AltDaily, in time and with money, also may grow to become an outlet that could break news and dig. Though I don’t condone the shortcomings of the example I cited at the beginning of this essay, AltDaily’s piece on Veer questioned something that was misleading, intentionally or not, to the public. That’s exactly what an alt pub – or any journalist – should do.

Scaccia, 30, has also questioned other media work he’s seen, such as the sensational aspects of reporting airport safety scares that don’t pan out. Scaccia and Serrano, 27, also have put out a detailed call for content. Read the list of what they want to cover and it seems AltDaily’s goal is to provide a forum for several alternative news topics, not just arts and entertainment.

“Our publications are different in mission, in look, in tone, in intended audience, and even format, so I wouldn’t say there’s necessarily a huge relationship or even correlation,” Scaccia wrote, responding to a question about the relationship between AltDaily and Veer. “More importantly, there are 1.7 million people in the greater Hampton Roads area. I would hope that there are enough readers out there to support two alternative publications.”

AltDaily launched a year ago, and primarily as a print product with a headquarters and arts space on Granby Street, and a Web presence, according to Scaccia. When Scaccia joined Serrano as co-editor and publisher in July, it was rebranded under the present title and the print edition ended, if only for the time being. Missions includes activism, civic projects and more-focused community building, according to Scaccia. The staff is Serrano and Scaccia, who have other jobs to pay the bills.

At AltDaily, as Scaccia noted, readers are cub reporters.

“Investigative reporting, when done with a good heart, is God's work,” Scaccia wrote. “We would love to have as much of it as possible in AltDaily. With that said, it’s not so realistic to think that we’ll be able to do all that much of it. Investigative reporting is terribly expensive, and prohibitively expensive to us right now. … (R)esponding to news with opinion or pastiche, as you say, can be damn important too. … We can still do some good without extensive enterprise reporting.”

AltDaily features involving visual arts have shown the advantages of multimedia capabilities of Web-based publication. First-person stories have been diverse and technically aware. The commitment to high-speed rail – a barrage of reports leading up to hearings – is pure advocacy journalism.

“We want to do more news, yes,” Serrano said, via e-mail. “It’s a large region with a lot happening, and we would cover every inch of it if we could. … The ability to take on a staff writer or even have the time and resources ourselves to provide that kind of content is something we are certainly hoping to have in the not too distant future.”

For now, the general role of breaking news falls to TV and The Pilot.

“What we provide are deeper investigations, alternative perspectives, more thorough follow-ups and such,” Serrano said. “It’s a shame that The Pilot has, as you said, ‘shed an awful lot of people’ because even we rely on them for news reportage. We firmly believe that every community needs a quality news source, and that’s what we’d like to count on The Pilot for.”

If The Pilot fails – or the owners simply pull the plug, as would be their right – there’s no likely business or non-profit plan that I know of to replace or approximate this important civic resource. It would take an investment the average citizen would find astounding and tremendous entrepreneurial risk on behalf of publisher(s).

Despite a truly alarming exodus of reporters of exceptional talent and irreplaceable experience, The Pilot remains the premiere news organization in Hampton Roads. Online news sources rely on newspapers and wire sources for a great deal of their significant newsworthy content. Locally, the source is The Pilot.

When newspapers go away, your online experience as a consumer of hard news will suck more.

Local news will really, really suck more.

A possible solution for Hampton Roads is local people with resources buy The Pilot, set it up as a profit-seeking yet not-for-profit organization, and set it loose covering primarily local news, state news and some national news. This revised paper’s mission would include a Washington D.C. reporter, a two-person Richmond bureau, and intense business, government, sports and social/community reporting of the Hampton Roads region, regional policy bodies and cities. Editorial comment would stay. Not the arts.

Generally speaking, alts can and should have the arts. On this point, I disagree with Robotham, who has noted The Pilot should cover the arts like it covers sports. It’s not that the arts don’t matter. The arts just matter less than City Council and public safety issues to the real lives of the vast majority of citizens.

Alternative publications are expressions of their own important roles as people who care about Hampton Roads and about the culture here, which makes the arts a natural coverage area. Additionally, people like reading entertainment news, but it frankly doesn’t make sense for the newspaper’s staff to review films or do light culture stories when newsroom staff is getting gutted.

It’s all about the news.

“Daily newspapers are essential to a democracy, to an honest government, absolutely,” Maisey told me. “And it will be a shame if daily newspapers do disappear.”

“Oh man,” Scaccia wrote. “They report the nuts and bolts, day-to-day news that people couldn’t get without a proper daily newspaper.”

Do those sentiments read like fluff? Maybe. Here’s hoping our local alternatives can remind us how The Pilot provides information we can’t get elsewhere. These editors are admirable for the very real risk they take investing in journalism of any kind. I hope they might consider covering the health of The Pilot and championing its revitalization – and take a watchdog role covering the dominant media, as well as the health and ethics of alternative media forms.