Frank Batten - The Virginian-Pilot

The Virginian-Pilot

Batten professionalized the newspaper he inherited in 1954 at age 27, and went on to acquire the Portsmouth Star, which he later merged with the Ledger-Dispatch to form the Ledger-Star. During his early days as Publisher of The Virginian-Pilot, Frank Batten championed desegregation, a position not often taken in the state of Virginia during the 1950s; Virginia, like much of the American South, was undergoing deep resistance to the movement. In 1960 The Virginian-Pilot received a Pulitzer Prize for articles written in support of desegregation.