F. Batten Sr., retired chairman of Landmark Communications, dies at 82

Frank Batten Sr., who turned a small newspaper company into one of the nation's largest privately held media empires, started as an errand boy and became one of the nation's 400 richest people.

Yet friends and colleagues remembered him yesterday as a man who cared most about using his influence and fortune to change the world for the better.

Mr. Batten, the retired chairman of Landmark Communications, now Landmark Media Enterprises, died yesterday in Norfolk at age 82.

A memorial service will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. at Virginia Wesleyan College.

The longtime leader of the company whose properties include The Virginian-Pilot and The Roanoke Times newspapers and Style Weekly in Richmond, he forged a legacy that included taking a stand against Massive Resistance to school desegregation in the 1950s, and he later donated hundreds of millions of dollars to philanthropic causes in Virginia, especially for education.

"He was the finest publisher I ever knew and certainly a man of great integrity," said Forrest M. "Frosty" Landon, who worked at Landmark as executive editor of The Roanoke Times from 1982 to 1995.

"Mr. Batten was a beacon of virtue and unafraid to stand alone in his principles," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said in a statement.

"As a young publisher of the Norfolk newspapers when the Supreme Court ordered public schools to integrate in 1954, Mr. Batten led The Virginian-Pilot to become the only metropolitan paper in the commonwealth to endorse the court's decision," the governor said.

Despite graffiti scrawled on his building and bomb threats, he helped put together a full-page advertisement, signed by many Norfolk community leaders, calling for the schools to reopen.

"And in 1960, his support for the work of his own editorial page editor culminated in the editor's award of a Pulitzer Prize for the courage to stand against Virginia's Massive Resistance to integration," Kaine said.

Mr. Batten was an early advocate for racial and gender diversity in newsrooms. "He thought it was the right thing and pushed hard for it, and when he pushed hard for it, those who worked for him pushed for it," Landon said.

He also stood strong in the face of skepticism -- even ridicule -- when Landmark Communications launched The Weather Channel on cable television in 1982.

"When people made fun of the start of The Weather Channel, saying it wasn't real television, he just laughed it off and said, 'We will try it anyway,'" Landon said. "It became something extraordinary."

Mr. Batten, a Norfolk native and resident, was a year old when his father, a bank auditor, died. An aunt, Fay Slover, invited young Frank and his mother to live at their home. Slover's husband, Samuel, owned Norfolk's largest newspaper, the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch.

Mr. Batten once said that he learned a lot from his uncle about values, especially truthfulness and how to deal with people and be straightforward. He also absorbed his uncle's devotion to his community.

He graduated from Indiana's Culver Military Academy in 1945, attended the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, and in 1947 entered the University of Virginia.

That summer, he worked as a copy boy in the newsroom of the Ledger-Dispatch. He returned to the paper as an intern reporter, graduated from U.Va. in 1950 and earned a master's degree in business administration from Harvard University in 1952.

He rejoined the newspaper as assistant secretary-treasurer in 1953. The next year, he became publisher of Norfolk-Portsmouth Newspapers Inc. at age 27.

When Mr. Batten suffered cancer that required the removal of his larynx in 1979, he learned a new way of speaking.

Even after his surgery, "he was not hesitant to come back and speak in front of a couple of hundred leaders of Landmark Communications," Landon said.

At an annual meeting of company leaders in Norfolk after his surgery, Mr. Batten introduced every person in the room by name, Landon said.

Hundreds of reporters and editors who got their start at Landmark newspapers went on to work for media organizations around the nation and world, and Mr. Batten himself served as board chairman of The Associated Press from 1982 to 1987.

"He certainly changed the face of journalism in this state and, of course, across the country," said Ginger Stanley, executive director of the Virginia Press Association.

Mr. Batten donated more than $223 million to schools and other educational institutions in Virginia. That included a 2007 gift of $100 million to U.Va. to establish the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

"Frank Batten, while perennially a newspaperman, was first and foremost a citizen of Norfolk and of Virginia," said J. Stewart Bryan III, chairman of Media General Inc., which owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

"He was incredibly generous toward them both, especially in the education of their youth. He was equally generous with his chosen profession, filling numerous leadership roles within its ranks. His example will remain an inspiration," Bryan said.

Survivors include his wife, Jane Parke Batten; a son, Frank Batten Jr. of Virginia Beach, chairman and CEO of Landmark Media Enterprises; and two daughters, Dorothy Batten of Charlottesville and Mary Elizabeth "Betsy" Batten, now known as Maitri Leela Bavana, of Encino, Calif.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.