Today we honor and tip our hats to the late, great Horton Beirne, Publisher of the Virginian Review, who passed away this day, January 10, in 2015.
Horton was a paragon of journalistic integrity and community involvement, whose unwavering stance on ethics and morality in the news business profoundly shaped our local journalism’s high standards. He firmly believed that local news was paramount in ensuring misinformation, political polarization, corporate malfeasance, and a government operating without informed public consent were actively monitored, challenged, and accurately reported to the public.
Under Horton’s watch, personal agendas were as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party. He avoided and refused to participate in anything that harbored a conflict of interest, wasn’t afraid of calling a spade a spade, and he particularly frowned upon his employees holding public offices. He was born of the same cloth as Buck Rumpf, the original Shadow, as they both were steeped in the values of integrity, dedication, and an unwavering commitment to the public good.
His journalistic rules were simple and clear: personal political views, unhealthy biases and vendettas stopped at the newsroom door. Horton understood this implicitly and his actions consistently reflected through his 18 years of unwavering service as president, board director and counsel for the Virginia Press Association, the official peak body for journalism in Virginia.
Since Horton’s final bow in 2015, there’s been a noticeable shift in the adherence to these stringent ethical standards among news agencies in Alleghany and Bath counties, including his very own Virginian Review. These local news outlets have edged closer to, and sometimes crossed, the boundaries of ethical journalism, seemingly favoring political and personal narratives over unbiased community reporting and news dissemination. This trend is a stark contrast to everything Horton tirelessly championed throughout his career.
Let’s start with Horton’s own newspaper. Once Horton’s watch was over, the Virginian Review suffered an ethical quandary between 2015 and 2020, as its General Manager was also Vice Mayor of Covington. Could this be the pure definition of “conflict of interest” and the heavy thumb on the scale that Horton fought hard to keep out of his newsroom? Even under its new ownership commencing in 2020, the Virginian Review has grappled with how to right itself and reinstall better ethics and impartiality standards that accurately reflect Horton’s core beliefs.
One of the motivating factors behind the Shadow’s decision to resume writing columns for the Virginian Review was witnessing the team’s dedicated efforts to realign with Horton’s principles and mission. There’s a noticeable shift in their journalistic approach, with signs of robust, independent, and non-partisan reporting emerging. The new staff, notably free from apparent conflicts of interest with public offices, is a refreshing change. Although it’s still early days, these developments are indeed promising.
The Alleghany Journal, while industrious in covering local stories with a small team, also treads in the same pond as the Virginian Review once did. The Journal operates 100% online, is not recognized as an official “Newspaper of Record” by the Virginia Press Association, nor is it a member of the association. This means it is not bound nor governed by any standard set of ethics, best practices or monitored by any industry organization. It does not have the legal right to officially publish mandated notices that public offices are required to place in Newspapers of Record. The question here is, what gives the reader comfort he or she is not reading news skewed in a particular direction for a particular outcome or hidden agenda?
However, it is not the content that is most concerning, rather, it’s the cozy relationships with Clifton Forge council members and the public school system staff that are raising eyebrows, hinting at potential favoritism and skewed reporting. Such closeness with local authorities could lead to an unbalanced narrative, also excluding many readers who are not on online or on Facebook. How is this method inclusive for all of Clifton Forge’s residents, especially articles that require legal publication mandates, public exposure, scrutiny and inspection? And being only online begs the question: what happens to its online website and Facebook page when its publisher retires, or the website goes permanently offline, or is hacked? Sounds like an imminent black hole with no microfilm or paper archive to preserve Clifton’s historical posterity.
Despite these challenges, the Journal’s dedication to covering a breadth of stories with limited resources is commendable, showcasing a tenacity that Horton might have admired for its spirit, if not its methodology.
Finally, the Recorder, based in Monterey and billed as “Your Monterey, Virginia News Source, serving Bath, Highland and Alleghany Counties,” also finds itself skating on the conflict of interest, thin-ice-pond the Virginian Review once fell through. Not missing a beat, in 2020, the Vice Mayor of Covington jumped from the Virginian Review ship and continued his dual role as the Vice Mayor and Recorder’s Alleghany County News Editor. This again raises questions about impartial reporting, especially when the Vice Mayor allegedly reports on his own council’s activities. Further complicating matters, his wife, now the City Clerk, has been allegedly directing mandated legal and public notices preferentially to the Recorder, which if there’s truth in the whisper, these actions are intentionally withholding information from a substantial number of local covington residents, who don’t subscribe to the Recorder and aren’t online, from actually knowing what’s going on in their own city. Such entanglements could be seen as compromising the Recorder’s journalistic integrity, a situation that would undoubtedly have Horton shaking his head in disapproval.
Yet, in all this, Horton’s legacy of a fiercely independent press and shared community effort lives on. Horton was the kind of man that, without question, would immediately come to the defense and aid of each and everyone of these news agencies and folks in their time of need. And I would imagine in this situation, Horton would be on the horn calling upon these publications to, well… help make some adjustments and solve whatever issues that are keeping these agencies from fulfilling their obligations to our community.
Horton treated the press community as his brothers and sisters, not competitors. And despite the challenges, would selflessly help them with an ethical compass he advocated for all his life. His spirit remains a beacon, guiding our community’s journalism back to the path of truth and integrity.
Horton, your absence is felt, and you are greatly missed. Your principles continue to light our way and your thoughts still guide our pens, err…computers. I’m out of time, out of coffee, but never out of hope that someone other than Horton just might get on the horn and make ‘that’ phone call…
