It serves the five cities of South Hampton Roads as well as several smaller towns across southeast Virginia and northeast North Carolina.

It was a locally owned, family enterprise from its founding in 1865 at the close of the American Civil War[2] until its sale to Tribune Publishing in 2018.

In 1985, Thomas Turcol was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for his coverage of corruption in Chesapeake.

[9] The Virginian-Pilot and its sister afternoon edition, the Ledger-Star (which ceased publication in 1995) were created by Samuel L. Slover as the result of several mergers of papers dating back to 1865.

"Dee" Carpenter became publisher in 1995, followed by Bruce Bradley in 2005, Maurice Jones in 2008, David Mele in 2012 and Patricia Richardson in 2014.

The Shot Archived 2017-11-10 at the Wayback Machine was created by reporters Gary Harki and Joanne Kimberlin and dealt with the unsolved 2010 murder of Norfolk police officer Victor Decker.

Worrell graduated from Kempsville High in Virginia Beach and worked previously both for The Pilot and the Daily Press.

On May 29, 2018, The Virginian-Pilot was purchased by Chicago-based media conglomerate Tribune Publishing, formerly known as Tronc, for a cash price of $34 million.