Tired of waiting for our “newspaper of record” to report what many, but by no means all, Portsmouth citizens had heard from other sources, I wrote the following as a “Letter to the Editors” of the Virginian-Pilot:

One month ago today, the Portsmouth Registrar of Voters posted the official list of candidates for city council and school board in the November 6 General Election. On Sunday, June 17, and Monday, June 18, the Virginian-Pilot ran stories about candidates for school board and city council, respectively, in Virginia Beach. Since then, I have seen nary a word about who is running in Portsmouth or Suffolk; not in the main sheet, the weekly tabloids, nor online. As a Portsmouth subscriber and city council candidate, I would like to know when the V-P intends to fulfill its duty to its readers in this matter.

A week passed, but the letter did not appear in the paper. Expecting that I would not receive a response of any kind, I was pleasantly surprised to find this eMail message in my inbox about an hour ago:

Hello, and thank you for writing to us.

I heard back from the editor who handles Portsmouth coverage, and he confirmed what I thought — we’re planning to publish something soon about who is running. Close to the election, we’ll be doing additional stories.

Sent by the reader engagement editor, the response was more than I have previously received from the paper when one of my letters did not appear in print or online. Maybe I should be content that my low expectations were exceeded. Most of you know how I am, though; I want more. At a minimum, a date certain for fulfillment would be useful. How many calendar days remain until Christmas?