ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 11, 1996 TAG: 9608120014
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY
I am very much of what trendtrackers call the "Gutenberg generation."
I would much rather read type on paper in a book, magazine or newspaper - a preference dependent on a printing technology that dates back (in European history at least) to Germany in the 15th century, if not earlier.
But as someone in the communications and information business, however, I'm also aware that the times - including The Roanoke Times - are changing toward electronic means of receiving and sending information.
Which brings us to ... ah, yes, the good old Internet.
Before you flee for the funnies, let me assure you that I'm right there with you. Stories about the Internet generally bore me to death. If they're not incomprehensible, then they're typically filled with more hype than preseason college football aspirations. And, truth be told, I'd much rather read a book at home in the evening after work than surf the World Wide Web, which is the most accessible part of the global Internet.
Much of what I've seen of "public" discussion and postings on the Web, even on the much-vaunted Blacksburg Electronic Village, is churlish venting, ranting and raving. That's why, when the BEV gave all non-Virginia Tech users the bum's rush last month, I didn't rush to get back on line at home.
At work, though, it's another story. Since the rise of the BEV, the newspaper has been sending and receiving electronic messages, letters to the editor, stories from free-lance writers and so forth. Even more so, the paper - with the New River Current pioneering some of the effort - has experimented with placing certain items on line on World Wide Web home pages.
Home pages are akin to a table of contents in the world of printing, but they are much faster and more flexible than plain old paper. They can literally link a computer user to the other side of the world and text and data on a related topic in a matter of seconds.
Work on the New River Current's home pages started under my predecessor, Madelyn Rosenberg, who is much more computer savvy than I'll ever be. She was responsible for pushing, long before it became a big industry trend, to get the newspaper further into the electronic age.
But The Roanoke Times, though it has taken some steps in that direction, is still far behind cutting-edge attempts to provide up-to-the-minute news and information via the Internet.
One of the drawbacks is that few people have figured out a way to make money from such enterprises. Lacking financial incentives, there's no burning reason to direct staff and other resources toward such projects. Also, though Blacksburg has a heavy concentration of home computers, much of the rest of our readership does not.
That's not to say that we're not trying to go electronic. After Madelyn moved to another editing job in the spring, I let the Current's web pages slide for a month or two of benign neglect, to the point that clever Web-wits were sending e-mail pointing out that "The Current pages aren't very Current!"
Ha, ha.
Fortunately, that's when Hal Sheikerz stepped in. Hal works part time in the New River bureau while she completes a master's degree in business administration at Virginia Tech. She's also a self-confessed computer nerd. And a talented one, too. Over the past three months Hal has all but single-handedly resurrected and expanded the Current's Web efforts.
Now there are listings - arts and entertainment events, community events, the seniors column - but also news stories, more timeless features and extended coverage of long-term issues, such as the "smart" highway dispute late this spring.
Aside from a few in-house ads, we haven't done much to promote the Current web page. That's probably because it's still more of an experiment than anything. But word is getting out. The number of "hits," or visits to our primary web page, has increased steadily since April, when Hal took things over. In June, web users hit our index page 1,109 times.
And for some reason, we're getting feedback from Korea. One of our former reporters, Steve Foster, is teaching English there and e-mailed us one day recently to say he had just been checking out New River Valley news on the web at a cyber cafe. Just two weeks ago, a second lieutenant in the Army e-mailed us from Pyongt'aek, Korea, to let us know he was keeping up with the news from back home via our home page. More locally, a state trooper from Wytheville told another of our reporters that he checks out the Current on line from time to time.
As a confirmed Gutenberg-generation grouch, I'll stick with my books and magazines at home. But it's encouraging to know that even this newspaper's baby steps into the world of electronic information are being noticed.
Check them out yourself at: http://www.infi.net/roatimes/nrvhome/nrvindex.html Or send us an e-mail at newriver@infi.net.
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